Analysis of the approach of paleontology in biology textbooks

Hermínio Ismael de Araújo Júnior, Kleberson de Oliveira Porpino

Abstract


The textbook is currently one of the main instruments in the process of education and learning. Analyses of the Biology content in these books are essential in order to show problems contained in these publications and allow a more informed choice of books for the teaching of specific contents. In this work, an analysis of the Paleontology content in Biology textbooks was carried out, aiming to evaluate the reability of the presentation of paleontological topics in secondary school books and to provide crucial information for the choice of better texts for use in biology classes regarding the subject of Paleontology. Five Biology textbooks currently adopted in Brazilian secondary schools were chosen for the analysis. Among the textbooks analyzed, four presented a satisfactory approach to paleontological themes, including detailed descriptions of the main topics and reasonable presentations of key concepts. However, pervasive conceptual errors were found. Moreover, we found that new concepts and approaches currently adopted by the scientific community have been scarcely incorporated in these publications. Therefore, we highlight the need to update the books analyzed based on more recent paleontological textbooks, as well as a better articulation between paleontological and correlated biological concepts. In addition, we suggest an improvement in the explanations of complex issues, such as "fossil dating" and "fossilization processes".



DOI: https://doi.org/10.11137/2010_1_63-72

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Indexers and Bibliographic Databases

Social Media

SCImago Journal & Country Rank
0.6
 
 
22nd percentile
Powered by  Scopus
ISSN
ROAD
Diadorim
DOAJ
DRJI
GeoRef
Google Scholar
Latindex
Oasisbr
Twitter
Instagram
Facebook
 Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.