Metabolismo secundário de plantas: uma abordagem investigativa de ensino baseada em evidências e contextualização.

Abstract

Biochemistry, an interdisciplinary area of Science, is fundamental for understanding the chemical processes of living organisms. It requires a high degree of abstraction to understand biomolecules structural and functional features in cellular metabolism. In high school, the Biochemistry approach is superficial, leading to the formation of students without basic knowledge. Furthermore, this approach is unable to establish connections among important biological processes. Aiming to enable the perception of Biochemistry applied to plant metabolic processes in a contextualized way, allowing the approximation of scientific knowledge of the everyday life of high school students, an investigative didactic sequence (IDS) was developed. Consisting of six classes, it was applied in a second grade class of Full-Time Vocational High School - Chemistry Technician, made up of eleven students, which used Biochemistry concepts associated with knowledge about plant metabolism. In addition to the initial and final diagnoses to verify prior knowledge and consolidated knowledge at the end of the IDS application, respectively, students were involved in exploratory processes on ethnobotany and plant metabolism, to improve their investigative stance, developing skills necessary for classes that involved investigative experimental practices, adapted to the school environment. The proposed IDS contributed to the development of protagonist students and the development of skills related to autonomy and critical-investigative thinking, proving to be aligned with the BNCC. The students were exposed to a question that guided the development of contextualized and investigative activities, through video analysis, discussion with peers, experiments for perception and collection of evidence, formulation of hypotheses and collective conclusion with analysis of the collected data. Considering data collection and analysis, methods such as Bardin's Content Analysis, Gee's Literacy Practice and Intuitive Method were used; appropriate to the qualitative nature of the research. From the development of the activities proposed in IDS, students were able to establish a relationship between the evidence obtained and the characteristics of biomolecules, formulating scientifically supported hypotheses, establishing connections between concepts, definitions, evidence and applications. We must consider that Biochemical “imperception”, as well as Botany “imperception”, is a reality in basic education, as it is knowledge structured on a micro and submicroscopic basis, and students have a great challenge in perceiving the processes through identification of evidence. As we cannot so easily reach the micro and submicro universe, the establishment of a relationship between the macro and these two dimensions is a key point to understand Biochemistry.