Meio ambiente: o que dizem os livros didáticos dos anos finais do ensino fundamental?

Abstract

Textbooks represent an enormous significance towards teaching methodology; in fact, they are mostly the only materials available in order to provide support and development for teachers and students. Therefore, under the circumstances of studying, investigating biological processes and environmental themes, textbooks are needful and had been suffering significant changes ever since. The goal of our researches was to indicate and verify how a textbooks from Bayeux Middle School address the environmental topic; identify the essence of the themes related to environmental matters presented on the textbooks from grades 6 to 8, exemplify the themes dealt with in the books, compare in books from the sixth to ninth grades how the themes of the environment are portrayed, exemplify the Science, Technology, Society and Environment approaches found in textbooks and note the main gaps in the teaching material on the subject. The research presents the qualitative approach and indicates bibliographic study as an investigative procedure. The data were organized through Content Analysis, specifically Bardin's thematic analysis. In the process of data analysis after exhaustive reading were obtained and the units of record and units of context were made to categorize them. The study showed that representations about the environment appear predominantly in a conservation or pragmatic Environmental Education approach, while involving relations with the environment under individual and behavioral actions in the domestic and private field, so that it does not cover history, politics among other factors. Regarding the Science, Technology, Society and Environment approach, it was possible to observe that it appears in a discrete manner, often exposed in complementary exercises. It is believed that the focus on the environment has evolved in recent decades, but there is still a need to advance and overcome limitations found in science textbooks.