Horta escolar como ferramenta complementar na aprendizagem de ecologia: análise da percepção e ganho de conhecimento dos alunos em aulas de biologia para o ensino médio

Abstract

Teaching Ecology is complex and requires that teachers and students deal with a sereis of words that have distinct writing and pronunciation from the common population language. Furthermore, the curriculum of Biology in High School chalenges the teacher to teach conecpts covering processes and mechanisms distant from what the students’ daily observation can capture. Therefor, it is fundamental the use of new pedagogical strategies thar may turn the process of teaching accessible and attractive to the students. In this context, a school vegtetable garden that offers hand-on activities could be valuable, as the students learn more through observation and actice participation. The present work was focused to develop an investigative didactic sequence based on a school vegetable garden to teach Ecology and evaluate the perception and the gain of knowledge of high school students. The didactic sequence was inserted into the Biology discipline of the second and the third years of Hogh School in the groups led by teacher Douglas Moreira Santana da Silva, at Escola Estadual Senador Levindo Coelho, Ubá – Minas Gerais. Students’ perception was analized through a semi-structure questionaire, in which the students’ motivation, learning and satisfaction were assessed. The gain of knowledge was checked by the performance in activities of didactic sequence and assessments provided in the discipline. The students had a positive general perception of the vegetable school garden, evaluating it with an avarage score above nine (out of ten). Most of the students (90,3%) agreed that the vegetable garden had a positive impact in the learing process and 97,6% of the students state that it stimulated them to have active participation in the process. Furthermore, 97,6% of the students agred that the vegetable garden improved their comprehension in Ecology contente and 80,5% stated that it helped to increase the interest in Biology classes. In addition, the participation of the students in activities was evaluated in 100% by the teacher and the avarage grade Knowledge Verification Test showed a satisfactory performance and an achievement above 62%. The results suggest that the didactic sequence focused on the joint construction of a school vegetable garden with students as an excellent alternative to optimize the larning of Ecology in High School, improving students’ perception of the content and the subject. In addition, the vegetable garden increased the students’ role in the construction of knowledge and brought Biology content closer to their daily lives.