Plantas em quadrinhos: uma perspectiva metodológica para compreensão dos processos evolutivos por meio de uma abordagem investigativa

Abstract

The teaching of plant evolution faces major challenges, not only because of the complexity of the concepts involved, but also because of so-called botanical imperception, people's tendency to ignore or underestimate the importance of plants in the environment and the prevalence of misconceptions about the evolutionary process. With the aim of promoting a broader and more meaningful understanding of plant evolution, this study developed and implemented an investigative teaching sequence combined with the production of comic books. The research, which was qualitative and interpretative in nature, was carried out with students from the 1st year of secondary school in the full-time course at CIEP Marlene Abib de Oliveira, located in Varre-Sai, Rio de Janeiro. The didactic sequence was based on the levels of investigation proposed by Smithenry (2010) and the degrees of intellectual freedom of Carvalho (2018), covering the 5 dimensions of inquiry-based teaching of the National Research Council (2000). The evaluation took place through an analysis of the comics (HQ), which showed important conceptual advances, such as understanding the evolutionary adaptations of the main plant groups - bryophytes, pteridophytes, gymnosperms and angiosperms - and the perception of botanical diversity. However, difficulties persist in understanding evolution as a non-linear and purposeless process, as seen in the recurrence of teleological discourses in the narratives. The results indicate that the combination of inquiry teaching and comic book production can be a promising methodological alternative for teaching plant evolution, promoting scientific literacy and evidence-based argumentation. We recommend expanding strategies that explicitly address teleological misconceptions, reinforcing the understanding of evolutionary processes in a critical and contextualized way. As a pedagogical product, a digital booklet was produced with the didactic sequence and complementary resources for teaching plant evolution for use by secondary school teachers.