A paleontologia nas escolas públicas do Curimataú Ocidental e Seridó Oriental Paraibano: uma abordagem na ótica dos professores.

Abstract

Paleontology is an extremely important science to understand events of the past, as well as for the development of discoveries and research about geological era, species evolution and the changes with them over time. However, what we can see is that the approach of this subject in the school curriculum is minimal, so it is far from being applied with emphasis and with effective importance in the classroom. This study aims to show how teachers of micro-regions from Western Curimataú and Oriental Seridó Paraibano perceive these difficulties, making a qualitative and quantitative analysis of Paleontology education by completing a form divided in two parts. In the first part, it was made a profile analysis of teachers and, in the second, it was applied objective and subjective questions, in which teachers could describe all the main points about how Paleontology is approached in their classrooms. This research involved the participation of twenty teachers from public schools in seven cities in the Western Curimataú and Seridó Oriental Paraibano. The results demonstrated that teachers understand the importance of Paleontology in teaching the subjects of Science and Biology, as it contributes to the development of students’ scientific knowledge. In addition, they also observed that the schoolbooks and the curriculum are unsatisfactory about Paleontology. Despite difficulties, the teachers try to insert the subject in the classroom, making use of the resources they have. In this context, the research made it possible exposes the teachers’ perceptions about the deficit in the development of Paleontology theme in basic education and even presented some methodologies used by teachers to try to circumvent existing problems. Thus, it was verified the need of an overhaul in schoolbooks and in the school curriculum.