Concepções das crianças da pré-escola em relação a fenômenos astronômicos

Abstract

This work deals with the teaching of astronomy in early childhood education and has as a research problem investigate the space-time perception of pre-school children, in the age range of 4 to 6 years, to understand in the classroom the phenomena of day/night , phases of the Moon and seasons from the point of view of astronomy. The main objective of this study is to analyze the conceptions of pre-school children about their spatial notion to explain the cycle of the seasons from the height of the Sun and its temporal notion to explain the cycles day/night and phases of the Moon. for that, three interview schedules were applied, one for each content, were used to evaluate the knowledge that children already have about these phenomena and to evaluate if it is possible to work them in the classroom from an astronomical point of view. Observations and registration of the Sun and Moon were carried out over six months, as well as a visit to the planetarium. The research methodology used was qualitative, using phenomenology as a research method and, as instruments for data collection, the audiovisual records of the interviews, drawings of the children and notes of the teacher's logbook about the observations, analyzing the data through the methodology of discursive textual analysis. The analysis of the students' drawings was based on Piaget's theory on the phases of the child's drawing. The results indicated that the teaching of astronomy adjusted to the age range of the children's education, besides being possible, is of great importance, since the theme is still little worked in the classroom.