Bats and science teaching: representation in 6th and 7th grade books of Elementary School

Abstract

The didactic book is one of the most used instruments in classroom and sometimes it is the only that helps the instructor and the students during the academic year. During his formation, the professor needs elements that make possible reflections about the resource’s limitations.  This assignment’s main objective is to evaluate how the bat is approached in the sixth and seventh grades Science’s didactic books. The methodology began with the didactic books collect at the schools; after that, it was realized an analysis about the bats in those books to discover more about the topics they discuss about, theoric content, visual resources and proposed activities.  This resource analyzed 40 books. About the content, the highlighted aspects were: importance, diet, morphology, shelter, wealth, echolocation, diseases and behavior. In 27 analyzed books there are 45 illustrations (30 photos and 15 schematic drawings). Twenty six species were identified - ten of those exist in Brazil and 17 are exotics-. Some taxonomies misconceptions were pointed out about the identification. This study made it possible to observe a few conceptuals problems or distorted informations in those books. Thus, it is important to mention that they need to make some changes in the theoric contents, like at the very important topics that are not so well labored (threat, behavior, extinction and perception).