Argumentação no ensino de ciências e temas controversos: possibilidades para pensar a embriologia nas aulas da educação básica

Abstract

Embryology is a present subject in elementary and high school classes and its possibilities to present and promote discussions related to the development of vertebrates would justify its importance in basic education. The approach, however, can be notoriously boring, both for teachers and students, specially, when the teaching of concepts is mechanically guided. The presence of "embryology" in didactic material usually does not relate issues inherent to the process of knowledge construction or its controversies. In this perspective, we defend the possibility that teachers of science and biology develop with their students, teaching practices based on the argumentation and the discussion of controversial issues associated to embryonic development. The argumentation is particularly important in science education, assuming that scientific research generates and justifies the production of knowledge, as well as allowing articulation with other systems of thought in the understanding of natural phenomena and the social and cultural interactions. The embryonic development, notably that of the human species, enables and supports the understanding of the causes of congenital malformations, also the interactions and care in the process by which the embryo forms and develops, also the possibilities or impossibilities of therapeutic treatments from embryonic cells and goes beyond, creates discussions within the philosophy of the biological sciences, the definers of the beginning and the end of life. We consider relevant the innovation of teaching practices when embryology is approached, widely discussed nowadays and witnessed in the media in aspects that extend from teenage pregnancy to the biotechnological development, such as the pill of the next day, the use of the embryonic stem cells, the surgical methods for sterilization, among others. The teaching of sciences is a rich subject for practices that guarantee, from contextualized actions and far from mere proof of concepts, an intellectual formation allied with contemporaneity and that trains people who have the capacity to deal with socially significant issues. The argumentation in science teaching through controversial subjects is an outlook that should not be neglected in issues such as embryonic development, indeed, it is possible to think in research projects in education that result in the production of didactic materials related to the current demands and that increasingly articulate scientific knowledge, social organization and legislative proposals.