Educação científica dialógica: contribuições do cinema nacional para a educação em ciências

Abstract

This dissertation is the report of a master's research in which we explored the contributions of Brazilian cinema to the construction of dialogical situations in Science and Biology classrooms. This work is based on Paulo Freire's philosophy and pedagogy and investigates the potential to create existential situations commonly found in the reality of the students. These situations present themselves as coded problem situations to the students. This qualitative research follows document analysis procedures and adopts films as data source. Given the relevance of the construction of critical individuals and of scientific knowledge in Freire's work, both were elected as criteria for our sample selection. We also developed na analysis instrument based on problematization and Paulo Freire Method. Our tool comprises three dimensions: the universe of conceptual scientific knowledge, the universe of ideas constructed by the students and the social context. During the period of sample selection, we identified Brazilian “sertão” (a semi-arid region in northeastern Brazil), “caatinga” (Brazilian morphoclimatic and phytogeographical domain) and its biomes emerging from the work of various people involved in the creation of the films. Hence, the aforementioned region is the outline of our investigation. Our analysis intends to present the potential of the concepts of biomes and domains to generate problematizations and discussions about the problems portrayed in the films. Six films about this region were analysed. We have found existential situations involving the biological universe and the students’ universe represented in all movies. This result emphasizes the potential of Brazilian cinema to create dialogical situations and problematizations. The films are also considered discursively and aesthetically compelling, which provides discussions about the reality of Brazil’s northeastern region. We highlight the potential and the relevance of cinema as cultural and aesthetic experience inside the schools. Finally, we believe our results may assist Biology teachers that desire to diminish the distance between their students and the cinema and to adopt Paulo Freire’s ideas to their practices towards a more critical and dialogical pedagogy.