Medicamentos psicoativos : uma abordagem temática com enfoque CTS para o ensino de bioquímica

Abstract

Psychoactive drugs are chemical substances that act on the central nervous system, which are used to treat disorders that affect mental health such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, among others. Anxiety and depression together with stress are considered the “evil of the century”. Therefore, objectives of the present work of graduate course completion are to address this issue in the academic environment, to raise awareness about issues related to psychoactive drugs, to clarify a group of students of the chemistry graduation course and specifically to discuss and to verify whether it is possible to insert this topic into chemistry teaching. The methodology consists of three stages: First, a bibliographic survey was carried out to serve as support for the development of furthermore activities. Second, a field research was carried out with students from the Federal University of Pampa-campus Bagé. Finally, a didactic sequence (DS) was developed and realized with a small group of students in the biochemistry class of the chemistry graduation course. The didactic sequence was developed following the characteristics of teaching with a CTS focus and it was carried out in four meetings, two synchronous and two asynchronous. During the last meeting, there was a debate on the problem situation involving the topic of psychoactive drugs. Another observation that became evident during the analysis of the field research is the increase of the number of students who started using psychoactive drugs since the beginning of Covid-19 pandemic. The didactic sequence was applied sucessfully: The students were able to fix the discussed knowledge, the students were able to develop opinions about the problem situation and during the final discussion they were able to take a position by themselves within the aborded questions.