FROM CERRADO TO THE BOTANY KNOWLEDGE THROUGH ICT
Botany, teaching-learning; Hot Potatoes; plant morphology; didactic resources.
Botany teaching has been pointed out as discouraging and unattractive to students and this has contributed to the botanical blindness reported in the literature. Young people live in a technological world that has not reached the school. In this context, the present work aimed to develop and apply an investigative didactic sequence (IDS) on the angiosperm morphology and apply information and communication technologies (ICT) as learning facilitators. Diagnostic questionnaires were answered by students and teachers from two public schools; their answers were analyzed and presented in graphs. Most students showed interest in the study of Botany (59.1% and 71.4%); on the other hand, teachers indicated having little affinity and more difficulty on teaching this content than other subjects. Unpublished teaching resources were developed and applied, first with the IDS “A plant to call my own!”, which began with a video on the development, flowering and fruiting of the cucumber, followed by questioning and raising hypotheses. Then the students photographed landscapes and plants and commented on them, they “adopted” a native Cerrado plant provided by the teacher and planted them at home and photographed. The IDS ended with a class in which the teacher used the images produced by the students. Student engagement in IDS was high (80% and 88%), being spontaneous, voluntary and without the coercion of grades. Didactic resources of Hot Potatoes type were produced, applied in the classes and evaluated by the students. From these resources, students had access to unpublished texts, descriptions of plants and the structures that constitute them, and popular and scientific names. The species chosen were mainly native to the Cerrado, valuing this important Brazilian biome. The five authorial didactic products were answered in the internet browsers, being corrected automatically, with the opportunity for the student to correct any errors. About 90 students participated in ICT, in general with a performance above 75% of correct answers among the five activities and many students reached 100% of correct answers. Most students evaluated the Hot Potatoes activities positively, with emphasis on the JQuiz “How are the organs of a plant?”, considered good or excellent by 80% of the students. This free software proved to be versatile and very useful in Botany teaching. Both the IDS and the Hot Potatoes activities provided student protagonism and stimulated student autonomy and active student participation in the construction of the knowledge.