Natural History and Environmental Education in Dialogue in Science Teaching

Abstract

This paper analyzes pedagogical experiences of a Science teacher who taught in a Rio de Janeiro’s public school between the 1960s and 1990s. Her experiences relate to a singular pedagogical action structured by building and maintaining a zoo where wild animals were protected and used in didactic activities under ecological-evolutionary perspectives and on behalf of the conservation of wild fauna. The paper discusses the changes in the teacher’s practices that was originated by re-significations of naturalistic traditions, appropriated during her initial formation in Natural History in the face of the increasing influence of the field of Environmental Education over the years.