Jogos dos povos indígenas e ensino de física: atividades experimentais na disciplina de ciências da natureza no ensino fundamental

Abstract

The term “Indian” trivializes and disqualifies the identity, complexity and diversity of the indigenous peoples of a plural country, made up of a majority non-indigenous society, which is geared towards a Eurocentric vision. The school, as a space in which different visions circulate, through a contemporary reading of the world, can contribute to learning that modifies the folklorized and romanticized indigenous figure and leads it, with the same value, through dialogue with the areas of scientific knowledge. Based on this analysis, this research related the theme of the Indigenous Peoples’ Games to the teaching of physics content in the elementary school natural sciences subject. Specifically, this investigation was carried out in a 7th grade class at a state school located in the municipality of Araucária, Paraná. Applied in nature and with a qualitative approach, the research was carried out under the guidance of the following research problem: What are the contributions of the modalities of the Indigenous Peoples’ Games to the teaching of Physics content to elementary school students? The general objective was to understand whether and how the Indigenous Peoples’ Games can contribute to the teaching and learning of physics content, related in this study to the school content of movement, energy and heat. As for the methodological aspects, the investigation took place on the premises of a public school in four stages. At first, official documents from the state of Paraná were analyzed, such as the Curriculum Framework, the Pedagogical Political Project of the co-participating school, the Lesson Plan and the Natural Sciences Textbook. In the second stage, after the research had been approved by the Research Ethics Committee and the Regional Education Center of the Southern Metropolitan Area, questionnaires with open and closed questions were administered to a 7th grade elementary school class. The third stage involved participation in pedagogical practices/theoretical and practical lessons, in which physics content was related to the sports disciplines of the Indigenous Peoples’ Games, with the insertion of the observation protocol and the construction of concept maps. Finally, in the fourth stage, semi-structured interviews were carried out about the development of the activities. It was clear that the students learned the physics content they had been working on by relating it to the modalities of the Indigenous Peoples’ Games, that they were no longer passive about the indigenous view of the past and that they contributed to the creation of the educational product: Physics and Indigenous Elements, based on their participation in the pedagogical practices.