New Perspectives in Science Education

Basic studies in chemistry are told to have been ineffective in terms of learning. The teaching process needs to be revised, including students, stimulating them to get involved and developing concepts as proposed in the classroom. In this sense, it was sought to verify among the students initiating the last year of basic studies, who presented better performance in previous years to form groups of studies in which those would be the leaders, assuming a role of intermediaries between the teacher and the other students, helping in the group discussions and in the resolution of problems that were proposed and discussed in these groups. This activity was developed in the first semester of 2017 and involved 5 classes of technical courses (food, agriculture, environment and computer science) alongside the secondary school, totalizing 155 students in which 36 of these were identified as leaders by performance in previous years (2015 and 2016). A STEM approach was proposed for 3-step development, extraclass research, classroom discussions, and 3D structure assembly with alternative materials. The proposed activities were developed by the students in each group, each one with 4, 5 or 6 students, who chose an organic molecule and looked for important characteristics for that one, searching for features and interesting or important properties that would qualify it as the most important molecule among others (entitled “This molecule is 10”). The research was used as a pedagogical principle. After the research and analysis, the chosen molecules were presented, as well as their applications. The most cited and studied molecules were glucose and fructose, the most complex in structural terms were the DNA, morphine and nanocar. Thematic evaluations were applied according to each courses and class. Environmental and food courses stood out with the identification of more than one group of molecules, besides those proposed by their own group. It was observed improvement in interest, leadership in the discussions, greater interactivity between the students / teacher and greater participation during the classes.

Keywords: Motivation, leadership, STEM , research, studying methods;