Ações de Professoras de Química para a Manifestação de Aspectos de Natureza da Ciência dos Estudantes: Uma Análise em um Contexto de Ensino Fundamentado em Modelagem

Abstract

Science education researchers have shown growing concern about how classroom contexts can contribute to informed and holistic scientific literacy. One of the approaches that promotes this development is Model-Based Science Learning (MBSL), as proposed by Gilbert and Justi (2016). Addressing a gap in the literature, we set out to investigate the actions and interactions employed by Chemistry teachers that resulted in the manifestation of students' Nature of Science (NOS) knowledge in an MBSL context. This research analyzed previously collected data from the implementation of a teaching sequence. This sequence encompassed three teaching contexts: everyday, scientific, and socioscientific, all centered around the topic of plastics. Data collection was conducted by researchers from the REAGIR group – modeling and science education in 2017. This project examined the corpus documental related to the everyday teaching context, as the research took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, preventing the in-person implementation of a teaching sequence. The teaching activity was carried out by three researchers in a federal school in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, involving 13 volunteer students in their 3rd year of high school. A case study was created using video recordings of the teaching activities. This case study was subsequently analyzed using two references: the Science Model for Science Education v.3 (SANTOS, 2023) to identify NOS aspects manifested or experienced by students during the activities, and the Modelling Model Diagram v.2 (GILBERT and JUSTI, 2016) to delimit the influences of the teachers actions on the development of the modeling stages. As a result, we identified five types of teacher-generated metascientific questions (MQ) and reflections that teachers used to encourage students to manifest NOS aspects. These five types questions were: (i) metascientific questions (MQ); (ii) questions that involved the review of scientific knowledge (CQ); (iii) questions that led to revisions in models (RM); (iv) questions related to students' prior knowledge (PKQ); and (v) questions that explicitly involved modelling process stages (MPQ). We concluded that, through these questions and the contributions of our analytical framework, most of the teachers' actions maintained a significant connection to the mobilization of aspects related to the Nature of Science. Discussions with the students motivated them to externalize their views on the epistemic nature of scientific knowledge or even to construct an expanded view of this process. All these observations only materialized as the modelling stages led to mediated actions for these manifestations of NOS. Considering the nature of this work, we have developed an educational product aimed at supporting Chemistry teachers in conducting teaching activities as part of our objectives. These activities aim to enable students to experience scientific and/or epistemic practices, with the aim of expanding their views on science.