Water treatment as a generating theme for a didactic sequence focused on Environmental Education in Chemistry Teaching

Abstract

Environmental Education (EA) aims to provide citizens with knowledge that leads them to build social values, both collectively and individually, for coexistence and the conservation of the environment. In this way, the school is characterized as an alternative space in which EA must present itself as a protagonist, relating content to environmental themes, which enable students to act responsibly with the environment. Within this perspective, this work aims to observe the conceptions and conceptual evolutions of students in the 1st serie of high school, from a state school located in rural Sergipe, through the elaboration of a Didactic Sequence that relates the teaching of chemistry to Environmental Education, with contextualization on the topic of water and its treatment process for human consumption, associating the concepts of dispersion: colloidal and suspension and separation of mixtures. To this end, a didactic sequence (SD) was created, entitled “The path from water to your tap”, which was developed over a period of four weeks for a total of 15 students. It was possible to note that around 99% of students understood the relevance of the topic to promote socio-environmental reflections, as well as the importance of treating and conserving this water resource. However, to establish a relationship between the theme and scientific content and the promotion of conceptual evolution, it is noted that the participants had difficulties in modifying their previous conceptions.