STS Education and Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention: understandings of students from a Public School in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

This article comes from the observations and analysis of the activities of a project developed by teachers in the area of Natural Sciences and Its Technologies for high school students in a public school in the Amazon. It assumes as a guiding question: “how can STS education in activities on the theme of Pregnancy Prevention contribute to students’ learning and scientific literacy? To answer the question, qualitative research was used through a Discursive Textual Analysis, from which two categories of analysis were obtained. In the first category “Understanding the problem: pregnancy in adolescence in the Amazon” the following characteristics emerge: physical and psychological changes; poor access to contraceptive methods, guidance on sex education; sexual abuse; socioeconomic conditions. In the category “STS education, pregnancy prevention and life project”, the following characteristics were highlighted: contraceptive methods and life project; understanding of the reproductive system and fertilization; technology as a resource for information and knowledge. Such evidence brings the perspective of scientific literacy as it refers to the use of scientific knowledge in daily life, in its social dimension, by bringing up social, environmental, and regional exploitation issues as factores related to the problem.