2015/08/20 by Giselle Soares Menezes Silva · 1 voice
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Animal and Plant Science Education #Climate Change Communication and Perception #Science and Science Education
paper · pdf · doi:10.47749/t/unicamp.2015.958054
openalex publication_date 2015/08/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
This study aims to evaluate the science popularization actions developed by Seara da Cincia, the science museum of Federal University of Cear (UFC). In particular, we analyzed the experimental course, held in 2014, with public funding from CAPES -New Talent Program. Created by a group of teachers from UFC, Seara aims to stimulate curiosity for science, culture and technology by making connections with everyday life and by promoting interdisciplinarity between different areas of knowledge. Among all science popularization actions developed by Seara, the visits to the exhibition hall,the basic courses, the summer courses, the theater plays and the science videos stand out. In 2014 Seara received 23,363 visitors: 12,776 students of public schools; 7,494 students from private schools; 3,093 spontaneous visitors. The course analyzed in this research was held between the months of March and November 2014, with fifteen students of the second year of high school of a state school in Fortaleza. The students participated of weekly meetings of four hours, on Thursdays, in the Biology, Chemistry and Physics laboratories of Seara. For the analysis we used a hybrid approach, combining the case study Our theoretical basis is of the public understanding of science (PUS) studies, particularly the models presented by Lewenstein and Brossard (2006), and also the science, technology and society studies The research is divided into four chapters. The results show that despite not being its main purpose, Seara ends up working as a school extension, given the major concern with initiatives that can improve science education in the state of Cear. In the course analyzed in this study, the contents of the meetings at Seara followed the school curriculum for the 2nd year of high school. In our experience, we realized that students often repeated, in the Seara laboratories, experiments that they did at school or vice versa. We also noticed that although the institution debates issues that are part of the students lives, it could go deeper in this approach, by stimulating critical reflection on the process of social construction of science and its implications in everyday life. In addition, we found that the actions in the science communication area should be better structured and used, like the science videos produced by Seara, that even within the institution, are bit used.