Transgenic Food: Measuring the learning of high school students under the STS approach

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to understand the learning process through Vygotsky’s Theory of Learning, that is, everyday knowledge is considered a starting point for the acquisition of scientific knowledge. Since learning is not limited only to school social and academic spaces, knowledge can be acquainted from daily experiences. The knowledge that is intended to be investigated is on the theme “Transgenic foods”, a topic of social relevance, contemporary and still controversial due to the dilemma between its benefits and harms. Thus, this article has as general objective to investigate the learning of high school students, developed from the theme “Transgenic Foods”, with the approach in Science, Technology and Society (STS) as a mediating strategy. The research has qualitative character. The instruments of data collection were questionnaire and case study. The research was carried out in the first semester of 2017, with high school students from Prof.ª Alice Salerno Gomes de Lima public school located in Parque 10, in the city of Manaus – Amazon - Brazil, with ages ranging from 16 to 19 years. During the analysis of the data, it was found that the students had already heard about transgenic foods, but had strived with the scientific conceptual relations on the proposed theme.