Instagram e mapas conceituais como ferramentas pedagógicas para promover a aprendizagem significativa

Abstract

The Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC) guides the teaching of Biology and emphasizes the importance of teaching through investigation and student protagonism in the process of learning and restructuring their knowledge. Digital Information and Communication Technologies (DICT) are present in everyone's daily lives, thus representing an important tool to attract the student's interest. Among the DICTs most used by high school students is social media, which might play a relevant role in education, providing an interactive and collaborative platform. Concept Maps (CM) represent another excellent learning tool for inquiry teaching, building connections between the concepts listed. In this context, we used both tools to develop investigative didactic activities that stimulate students' learning and critical argumentation. In the study, two Investigative Didactic Sequences (IDS) were produced and applied, elaborated based on the Theory of Meaningful Learning (TML) and the use of Instagram on the theme of Worms and Zoonoses in the context of Health Education. Student protagonism and scientific literacy were evaluated through relevant situations for students and the school community during the application. A total of 79 students participated in the research and answered a semi-structured questionnaire used to assess their understanding of the activities applied in the context of the IDS. The students identified the high rates of diseases in different Brazilian regions, raising hypotheses for the high prevalence, related to the need to comply with current laws to improve access to basic sanitation, investments in environmental education, health education and public health. At the end of the IDS, they built hypotheses, used mediating instruments, compared data, made videos, and produced digital booklets and texts with great power of scientific argumentation. The IDS stimulated the interest and involvement of the students in the studies of diseases and expanded their knowledge about the problems related to worms and zoonoses. They demonstrated to have comprehended that health is everyone's responsibility and that they can therefore contribute to improving environmental and health education in the school community by disseminating information via Instagram. At the end of the IDS application, it was possible to see that the students understood that the topics covered are part of a relevant socio-political and environmental problem that goes far beyond the biological approach contained in textbooks. There is therefore a great need to reformulate biology textbooks and make them more relevant to students' everyday lives, especially concerning content related to the diseases that most affect society.