Ensino de Ciências na Educação Infantil: discussões a partir de uma Sequência de Ensino por Investigação

Abstract

The child is naturally curious, investigative and observant, so the stimuli offered through educators are very important, always prioritizing the natural abilities of each age. However, there was not always room for Science Teaching in Early Childhood Education. It was only with the publication of the National Curriculum Reference for Early Childhood Education – RCNEI (Brasil, 1998) that scientific education began to be demystified in this first stage of Basic Education. With this in mind, the present study, with a qualitative approach of the case study type, aimed to analyze processes of development of Science Teaching in Early Childhood Education through a Sequence of Teaching by Investigation (SEI) on pediculosis. The subjects were preschool-age children enrolled in a kindergarten V class at a Municipal Center for Early Childhood Education (CMEI) in the city of Ponta Grossa, Paraná. The SEI, entitled "Get out, louse!", was based on the homonymous proposal by Arce et al (2020), and was composed of seven classes, organized according to the four stages described by Carvalho (2020): proposition of the problem, resolution of the problem by the students, systematization of knowledge, and writing and design of the answer. For data collection, audio and video recordings, photographs, field diary records and graphic representations made by the children were used, and all audio and video content were transcribed and organized into episodes for analysis. The data revealed that preschoolers are also able to: engage in discussions related to scientific topics; make predictions and questions, raising hypotheses during their investigations; use observations as evidence; manipulate and identify equipment and materials; and also to represent and communicate their findings. In addition, the analysis of the drawings showed that the students were able to manifest acquired knowledge about the louse. The mediation carried out by the teacher played a positive role in several moments, encouraging the participation of the children, the expression of ideas, hypotheses and observations, in addition to the resumption of information in each class. There were times when it was necessary to change the tone of voice, as sometimes the children left the main focus: the SEI. In any case, we consider that the teacher, in the integration of SEI activities, which combine playful tasks with scientific approaches, played a fundamental role in guaranteeing the child's right to play, explore, research, speak, converse, draw and investigate.