Between Fantasy and Reality: the Conceptions of Antarctica in the Early Grades of Elementary Education

Museums and science centers are, first of all, places for interaction and social inclusion. They do not only allow different ways of teaching, but also encourage interest in science and technology among young people, keep adults interested in innovation, and above all ensure that the society takes ownership of knowledge. Education of a critical and updated citizen does not only need expositive school subjects, but also streamlining and exposing students in a creative way. In this direction, we will look at two main strands of analysis:
-The importance of fantasy in the construction of scientific knowledge;
-Scientific literacy in the early grades of elementary education.
Our research is inserted in a didactic sequence about the Antarctic continent, whose objective was to recreate the effect of previous conceptions of students, the physical conditions, climatic and biological characteristics of the Antarctic continent, always contrasting with the human presence on that continent. Developed by the teaching center of the university—Centro Pedagógico da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (CP/UFMG)—and based on the experiments present in an itinerant museum of science and technology at the university—Museu Itinerante Ponto UFMG—for 6 months, this research was conducted in a class composed of children of both genders aged 6-7 years old.
We focused our analysis on writing activities, the drawings made by students throughout the period, audiovisual records, and field book records. For the analysis of collected data, we worked with the concepts of creative activity, fantasy and reality of Vygotsky (2009), from the students’ drawings. This session will present the results of this fascinating research, which will help participants in designing their future activities.