Um estudo da aprendizagem enquanto um corpo afetado nas práticas de divulgação científica em um projeto de extensão para o publico infantil

Abstract

The aim of this research is to understand the modes of participation and learnings experienced by children in the practices of scientific communication developed in the workshops of the Scientific Extension and Dissemination Project “University of Children of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UC-UFMG)”. The UC-UFMG was created in 2006 and was the first University of Children of Brazil, and its activities involve the development of workshops and the production of animation shorts, illustrated texts, audios and books for the public children. The UC-UFMG workshops begin with visits to schools in which children are encouraged to ask questions about the human body that will be placed in a sealed box. The UC-UFMG team in possession of these questions prepares a workshop that will be held at the next meeting in order to meet the specific demands of these children. For that, several objects are used to mediate the activities that will be developed throughout the workshop, such as: play dough, colored pencils, paper, stethoscope, microscope, magnifying glasses, giant dolls containing digestive system, torsos, puzzle, books, among others. Using the theoretical-methodological and analytical framework of the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), we examine the movements and interactions established by the various actants that make up the UC-UFMG workshops. The data from this research were collected in workshops held at the Education and Communication Center in Life Sciences of the Institute of Biological Sciences at UFMG (NEDUCOM), during the second half of 2017, with groups of children aged between four and five years of a Municipal Unit of Early Childhood Education (UMEI) in Belo Horizonte. The methodological devices used for data collection were recording in a field diary with subsequent expansion of notes, the recordings in media (photos, audio and videos) and the use of children's drawings. The construction and analysis of data was made from a narrative following the ideas of how a good ANT report should be constructed. The analysis of the videos showed that the theoretical-methodological and analytical framework of the Actor-Network Theory is a powerful instrument for analyzing the complexity of the UC workshops, as it helped to understand the relationships between humans and the objects that participated in the processes of knowledge construction during the UC workshops. In addition, it was possible to notice that the movements and interactions established by the various actants present at the UC workshop gave the children the opportunity to expand their ways of seeing and feeling the world. From the analysis of the constructed data we understand the learning process as the ability to be affected and, therefore, as construction of a body. In this way children were seen as bodies that are and acquired the ability to actively explore the world around them and, therefore, to affect and be affected by all actants involved in the UC-UFMG workshops.