University of children: an experience in teaching about cells

Abstract

The study of cells is essential for the understanding of any biological process, and to its microscopic dimensions, it must be carried out with different alternatives for presenting the content, which increases the chances of the student to show greater interest, in addition to making him capable to recognize the importance for understanding life. To work on this theme, workshops were held at a state school in São João del-Rei - MG, through the extension project University of children. First, the theme “Cells” was chosen by the class teachers. Then, there was an activity to guess the name of different objects: a blindfold was placed on the students' eyes and they removed the objects that were inside a bag and tried to guess the name of each item. During this activity, students were encouraged to think “How can we perceive these characteristics?”; “Is there any structure that allows me to perceive these characteristics?”. At the end of this activity, each student wrote free choice questions about the proposed topic. These questions guided the Myths and Truths workshop, in which statements were shown and students judged them as correct or incorrect. The results were significant, and it is possible to observe the growing interest of students, especially because, for many, this was the first contact with the subject “Cells”, experimenting and experiencing in a more scientific way. It was possible to conclude that, through scientific dissemination, we were able to demonstrate concepts to children in a simple way, in order to be understood within the experience of each one.