como parte dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do título de Mestre em Ensino de Biologia.O ensino de Botânica na Educação Básica tem sido caracterizado como desestimulante para os alunos no Brasil, sobretudo devido às metodologias tradicionais de ensino praticadas pelos professores. Discute-se o papel de abordagens pré-aula utilizadas por professores, envolvendo as relações entre o objeto de estudo e o cotidiano do educando, como estratégia de atração da atenção dos alunos para um conteúdo específico. Desta forma, este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar o processo de "sensibilização inicial do aluno", através da utilização de métodos que visam estimular o interesse dos alunos por Botânica, antes de uma aula nesta área. Em uma primeira etapa, listou-se estratégias já descritas juntamente com o desenvolvimento de novas estratégias relacionadas aos conceitos abordados no ensino médio, no âmbito do ensino regular, de acordo com as competências e habilidades exigidas pelo Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (ENEM) e também do Exame Nacional para Certificação de Competências de Jovens e Adultos (Encceja), ambos oferecidos pelo Ministério da Educação (MEC). Na segunda etapa, avaliou-se algumas Estratégias de Sensibilização em uma turma do Ensino Médio, obtendo-se dados qualitativos e quantitativos a partir da comparação com grupos controlados. Os resultados encontrados demonstraram um aumento no interesse dos alunos por assuntos botânicos nas turmas que passaram pelas estratégias. A partir destas experiências, o trabalho apresenta um guia de estratégias simples para serem utilizadas por professores de Botânica no inicio de cada aula relativa aos conceitos de Botânica do currículo exigido pelo ENEM e Encceja.

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Since concept maps are designed to find out what the learner knows about a subject and are, in effect, maps of cognition, this article synthesizes relevant facts, concepts, and principles from cartography and applies them to concept mapping. The metaphor of the map and its applicability for representing scientific knowledge are discussed. The context of concept mapping is presented and suggestions for successful application of the technique in the science classroom are offered. Finally, researchers are invited to conduct studies that investigate the graphic representation of scientific knowledge in order to create, evaluate, and improve the graphics and graphic metacognitive tools (such as concept mapping) which are used in science teaching.

This research addressed the following questions: (1) Which science topic do junior high school students prefer to study—plants or animals? (2) Is their preference related to the variables of grade level and sex of student? Public school students from grades 7, 8, and 9 in Avoca, New York participated in the study. Findings show that 9th grade students have a greater interest in biological science topics than do students in the other grades studied. Girls are more interested in biological science topics than boys are. Girls also showed a significant preference for animals over plants. As a group, junior high school students revealed that they prefer animal study over plant study. About half of the student responses categorized as “biological science” did not express a clear‐cut preference for either plants or animals. A caution about generalizability is expressed. Interviews of students suggest that the following characteristics of animals are important determinants of preferences: Animals move, eat, have eyes for sight, communicate by sound, exhibit behaviors that are fun to watch, have short and observable live cycles, interact with humans, can learn, have mates, give birth, and raise their young. It was obvious that most students think of mammals when they hear the term “animal.”

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This article discusses the growing consensus across diverse educational research domains that the historical aspects of cognition are important for understanding not only how individuals but also disciplines know what they know. After proposing and defining the new superordinate concept of historicality, fundamental interrelationships between time, events, memory, meaning, personal knowledge, public knowledge, and the histories of the sciences are explored. Relevant research findings that demonstrate the confluence of scholarly thought concerning historicality across five educationally important domains are presented for the reader's consideration. Using the historicality concept, it is suggested that the histories of the sciences be considered as “the collective mind of scientists” and viewed as vital to developing students' knowledge about science by building upon the critical distinctions drawn by Duschl (1990). The author's science teaching technique, based upon construction of historical vignettes, is introduced here because of the relationship between history and story and the documented educational effectiveness of the story format. Finally, the author adds several cautionary notes about the validity of explanations based upon historicality and anticipates future advances in our understanding of the historicality of cognition.