Defense
Student: Venerando Santiago de Oliveira
Program: Professional Master's Program in Astronomy Teaching
Title: "SATELLITES, SPACE DEBRIS, AND THE TEACHING OF ASTRONOMY IN PRIMARY EDUCATION"
Advisor: Prof. Dr. Gustavo de Araújo Rojas
Judging Committee:
- Prof. Dr. Gustavo de Araújo Rojas - NUCLIO (Chair and Advisor)
- Prof. Dr. Eduardo Serra Cypriano - IAG
- Profa. Dra. Jane Cristina Gregório-Hetem - IAG
- Prof. Dr. Gustavo Iachel - UEL
Other Members:
- Prof. Dr. Ramachrisna Teixeira - IAG
- Prof. Dr. Amâncio Cesar Santos Friaça - IAG
- Prof. Dr. Reinaldo Santos Lima - IAG
- Prof. Dr. Michel Corsi Batista - UFTPR
Abstract:
This dissertation presents the results of an investigation into the impacts produced on the learning of Celestial Mechanics concepts through the introduction of the theme of satellites and space debris in Astronomy classes at the high school level. For this, six investigative didactic sequences were developed that addressed different physical concepts generally covered in regular Physics classes, provided for both in the BNCC and in the regional curriculum frameworks. The choice of topic and the production of the didactic material were strongly guided by the Ausubelian pillars of meaningful learning: potentially meaningful material, mobilization of prior knowledge, and students' disposition to learn. The adoption of the Inquiry-based Science Education approach aimed to enhance student engagement and agency by offering a rich environment with varied physical and digital resources, facilitating interactions among students, and enabling the practice of questioning, hypothesis generation, and critical thinking. Furthermore, it encouraged creativity and the ability to synthesize and argue when presenting the results and explanatory models produced by them during the investigation. The set of Investigative Teaching Sequences (ITS) was applied in three high schools in the city of São Paulo: a private school with extracurricular activities in the opposite shift, a full-time public school, and a third public school, also full-time, where the students' initial resistance to the investigative proposal revealed the centrality of the disposition to learn and the importance of strongly adaptive and dialogical teacher mediation. The results obtained in the first two applications present evidence of significant learning, with a noticeable evolution of the students' conceptual repertoire, and demonstrate the effectiveness of the investigative approach in promoting autonomy and engagement by moving away from the traditional expository model with which the students were familiar. Equally challenging aspects, which give rise to reformulations and choices of different strategies to overcome persistent conceptions, are also identified and discussed.
Keywords: Meaningful Learning; Inquiry-Based Science Education (IBSE); Celestial Mechanics; High School; Satellites and Space Debris.