Use of natural products in the Xingu-PA region in educational experiments for organic chemistry teaching

Abstract

The Experimentation and contextualization in Chemistry education are combined in the teaching - learning process, making the learning process easier and motivating students understand the contents. It also help to develop the capacity of understand these chemical phenomena in a daily basis. The use of experimental practical classes becomes an important teaching strategy for scientific knowledge-building process, thus stimulating the students’   investigative character, it is worth mentioning the importance of theory and practice in the construction of knowledge. The research was conducted in a public school in the city of Altamira – PA. With a senior students group from a high school in the afternoon shift. The practice was carried out in the presence of thirty (30) students and divided into three (03) times; They were dialogic and participatory classes when facilitors concepts were introduced in order to learn the Chemical components. An experimental activity, using easily accessible and inexpensive materials was performed in the construction of a handmade extractor for oil extraction from Basil plant (Ocimum basilicum L.), and the application of a questionnaire in order to check the learning by the students. The results allowed to perceive the interference in the formal education when trying to mediate learning by discovery and to what extent the experimentes can become meaningful learning, and points out that the students considered important to use experimental classes in chemistry teaching, being this a time of complement for theoretical classes and a reinforcement on learning.