Análise das apropriações de estudantes em relação aos níveis do conhecimento químico por meio do tema mineração

Abstract

The construction of chemical knowledge, among which we highlight the concepts related to Chemical Transformations (CT) and Physical Transformations (PT), are fundamental for the development of critical thinking among students. However, for this knowledge to develop, teaching practice that encourages the student to autonomy and to reflect on the reality in which they participate is necessary, seeking to understand it through their context and experience relating with their knowledge in chemistry. Thus, we understand that contextualization can become a starting point for the teacher to develop the construction of scientific knowledge together with students. However, it is necessary that the contextualization and development of scientific thinking be taken with the same value in school practice, safeguarding the integral education of the student, who can actually use science to position themselves in situations of their daily lives. With regard to the construction of scientific thinking in chemistry, we emphasize the difficulty of building this knowledge by students, especially in relation to understanding the submicroscopic universe. This difficulty highlights the need for the teacher, as a mediator of the teaching and learning process, to encourage their students to observe macroscopic phenomena and, subsequently, to immerse themselves in the submicroscopic universe. In view of this need for the proper construction of submicroscopic conceptions related to chemistry, as well as to promote contextualized teaching, this study was proposed to answer the following questions: How do high school students appropriate levels of chemical knowledge - macroscopic, symbolic and submicroscopic, related to Chemical and Physical Transformations, during an investigative teaching sequence (ITS) involving the mining theme? What potentials and limits can be identified in the administration of an ITS on mining for the critical and reflective training of students? Thus, we have the general objective of investigating how 2nd year high school students have appropriated from macroscopic, submicroscopic and symbolic levels of chemistry and wich contextualization they were able to perform, related to CT and PT during an ITS that has mining as its theme. To this end, during the ITS taught, activities were proposed, where students could represent their knowledge about CT and PT, through drawing, writing and dialogue, as well as present their reflections on the contextualization made possible by the theme. We started by performing a reflective analysis on the proposed ITS, indicating improvements in accordance with the experiences made possible by the researcher who worked as a teacher in the groups participating in the research. We are also dedicated ourselves to analyzing the students' responses to six questions addressed during the ITS taught to investigate their understanding of CT and PT. Finally, we analyzed the answers to two other questions and the letters prepared by the students, seeking to understand which contextualization they reached. The materials developed by the students were analyzed through content analysis, which enabled the creation of analysis categories. We understand that the ITS taught made it possible for students to: recognize that chemistry can be explained and understood through its three levels of knowledge, develop skills in moving through the three levels to explain the CT and PT of the materials and, in particular, at the submicroscopic and symbolic levels, in which they initially had great difficulty; awareness and decision-making related to mining activity, and recognition of positive and negative impacts of mining on nature, social and economic development.