In this article, we present results from a research project in which the main aim was to understand students' decision-making processes in choosing to become a teacher and to make sense of the relationships between this process and the formation of their identity as a teacher. The study was conducted with 39 students from the Science Teacher Education Program (LCN) at the São Paulo University (USP) School of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities (EACH) in Brazil while the students engaged in a supervised practical internship. The data used in this study was collected from narratives written by the students in which they provided their reasons for selecting the LCN program and for choosing a teaching career. The analysis showed several elements contributing to their decision making and the formation of their identities as teachers, including the nature of the undergraduate program, representational models of teaching/teachers, the possibility of being an agent for social transformation, and an affinity toward natural sciences and/or education. Findings from this research offer implications for improvement of the LCN program and suggestions for designing teacher education programs to include actions for improving the teaching career as a life project for new students.

The investigation described herein purported to identify the characteristics of ludicity in conversation circles about scientific subjectswhich we call science circles-, held with a group of 4-year-old children in a kindergarten center. The science circlesin which the children talked about butterflieswere recorded on audio and video over a period of approximately six months. We found that the circles displayed ludic characteristics only when the children were allowed to speak freely about the subject in question. Using as reference the works of Huizinga and Piaget, we found the following aspects of ludicity on these occasions: delimitation of time, delimitation of space, distancing from quotidian reality, competition, challenge, the presence of rules and willingness to participate. We also found that the circles sometimes resembled dramatic games, sometimes were like language games, sometimes were games of rules, and at other times were exercise games. It should be noted that the subject of "butterflies" itself has a strong "ludic potential", since children usually enjoy talking about these animals. During the period this group was monitored, we also observed that the children assimilated a variety of information about butterflies, such as: differences between life and death, coating of the body, metamorphoses/phases of the life cycle, and behavioral strategies. It should also be noted that lessons were learned concerning attitudes of care of live animals and about observation and data recording procedures.

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The main purpose of this research was to identify 4 to 6-year-old children’s ideas about microorganisms, taking into consideration the learning processes carried out in different educational contexts. To this end, data were collected from two institutions – a science museum and a kindergarten – by means of interviews, recorded conversations, drawings, and the application of a didactic sequence with the kindergarten group. A qualitative analysis of the data revealed that children associate the presence of microorganisms with dirty places and see them as pathological agents. The children demonstrated that they understand the idea of scale and the need for magnifying instruments. We found that they consider microorganisms morphologically similar to insects and that they use various scientific words appropriately. It was concluded that young children understand the theme “microorganisms”, and that it should be addressed more actively by institutions that teach four- to six-year-olds, which are responsible for contributing to their scientific literacy and science learning in childhood. It is proposed that the following themes be developed in educational activities with young children: biodiversity, scale, biological functions, and relationships with humans and food.

Resumo Este trabalho insere-se em um projeto investigativo no campo das culturas profissionais docentes, com a finalidade de pensar sobre processos de (re)construção de identidades docentes que ocorrem durante os cursos de formação inicial de professores, especialmente professores em formação, da graduação em licenciatura em ciências da natureza da Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades da Universidade de São Paulo (EACH-USP), no período em que realizam atividades de estágios obrigatórios nas escolas. Solicitou-se aos/às estudantes-estagiários/as a elaboração de narrativas audiovisuais que dessem a ver aspectos observados por eles durante o acompanhamento de interações ocorridas em situações de sala de aula. A aposta teórica deu-se em dois flancos: a educação do olhar e a educação do olho, com o intuito de desnaturalizar e desconstruir miradas em curso na contemporaneidade por diferentes ordens discursivas acerca das escolas. Como hipótese de pesquisa, supomos que, ao se alterar o tipo de linguagem empregada na produção discursiva, modifica-se a educação do olhar via educação do olho, possibilitando que topografias invisíveis, como processos de ensino e aprendizagem, ganhem visibilidade plástica por meio da linguagem audiovisual. Os curtas-metragens foram analisados por meio das múltiplas linguagens empregadas: corporal, verbal, visual e sonora, mobilizando, nesses professores em formação, diferentes maneiras de apresentar como vivenciam o momento de sua formação. Conclui-se que a imersão dos/as estudantes-estagiários/as em uma mesma escola, durante mais de um semestre e meio, até o momento de produção do audiovisual, possibilitou-lhes desnaturalizar concepções do que possa ser a escola pública a partir de suas experiências com a produção de curtas-metragens.

Neste trabalho discute-se, a partir do referencial de Vigotski, como ocorreu o processo de significação sobre borboletas em duas crianças de quatro anos, que se diferenciam de modo contrastante pelas formas de utilizarem as linguagens: um menino que desenhava muito e falava pouco, e uma menina que falava muito e desenhava pouco. Levar em conta as duas formas de expressão permitiu a constatação de que, nos dois casos, houve internalização de conhecimentos. Considera-se que só foi possível fazer essas constatações em decorrência do cuidado metodológico de "dar voz" às crianças por meio de linguagens diferentes, o que possibilitou que tanto a menina como o menino pudessem atribuir significados aos insetos estudados. A partir desta análise, são apontadas algumas das condições necessárias para o desenvolvimento de atividades de ciências com o público infantil.

Studies of museum publics are relatively recent, and studies of child visitors are even more recent. In this paper we summarize the types of exhibition evaluations mentioned in the literature and present an evaluation process for an exhibition about microbiology developed for and with input from 4-to-6-year-old children. As a case study we analyzed an exhibition entitled “The Giant World of Microbes.” Audio and video interviews were recorded with child visitors, and the stimulated recall technique was also employed. The data indicate the importance of interactive activities in enhancing child motivation and providing pertinent routes to follow when preparing an exhibition geared toward children.

The goal of this work is to investigate representations of the school institution held by graduate students of the Science Teacher Education Program at a public university in Brazil. We aim to answer the following questions: What are the representations of the school institution imagined by the researched students? How important are those representations to the process of teacher education? We analyzed 79 sketches made by the students in the period 2011 to 2013 during their internship program. Students complemented their sketches by brief oral and written narratives about them. Using qualitative analysis of social representations about school institution from a cultural and historic perspective, we identified three major and not exclusive conceptions of school: 1) the school environments produce an open-close play, with various levels of control and disciplining; 2) the pedagogical relationships are associated to teacher authority, disciplining and transmission of knowledge; and, finally, 3) the objects of the school point to the idea of the school institution as an isolated environment, with its own culture. The presence of these representations indicates the prevalence of a long process of production and recognition of aspects of the scholar culture by the students, which could contribute to reflexive practices in the proposals of teacher education programs.