Plantas medicinais: uma proposta para o ensino de química e biologia

Abstract

The present work proposes a study on teaching practices addressing the theme of medicinal plants with the aim of developing, implementing and analyzing a proposal for a didactic sequence involving these species, aiming at a contextualized teaching of the disciplines of chemistry and biology. The participants in the project were the students of two classes of the 2nd year of the Technical Secondary School of the Federal Institute of Amazonas. The methodology used is research-action, guided in a qualitative approach. For the intervention, we related the theme of medicinal plants to the construction of a Didactic Sequence, based on the theories of Zabala (1998). We find out the school curriculum of the students through access to the Pedagogical Project of the Course (PPC) and to the textbooks of the disciplines of chemistry and biology, in order to obtain more information for the construction of the sequence and to analyse how the topic is being approached. During the sequence, the students were able to get in touch with the various forms of practices that contribute to the study of medicinal species and their importance for everyday life, such as the production of drugs and herbal therapy. The results found, by means of the analysis of the data collected, show that the use of the didactic sequence associated with the topic of medicinal plants, being this a subject so regional and often forgotten by the students, aroused in them the interest for research, in addition to contextualizing the contents in a theoretical and practical way, valuing the prior knowledge that they possess, showing thus that the main objective was achieved, evidencing the teaching sequence as a resource of great relevance for the instruction of contents of the disciplines of chemistry and biology. In the end, the Didactic Sequence, a didactic product of this research, was materialized in a website, to provide a broader access to the content and thus favouring other professionals to reproduce the applied methodologies and thereby contribute to the teaching/learning process.