Z Generation Youth and Interest in Science

Abstract

Each year there is increasing the behavior of dependence on individuals in relation to the use of technologies, especially among the young people of Z Generation, born after the year 2000 and currently attending high school. Despite this, the relationship of science with these technologies seems not to be observed, since in several countries there is a decrease in the interest of young people for science. In view of this, aiming to investigate the interest of the young people of Z Generation by school science, this article wants to give the students of Canoas/RS a voice about this theme. The methodology adopted involved the application of a questionnaire called "Barometer: young people and science", belonging to the Project Sapiens that investigates nationwide the opinions, attitudes and interests of young people in relation to science and technology. The data presented here were collected in 19 schools, with the participation of 1.331 young people. The results show that they have more interest in other areas of science, such as health sciences, for example, than in relation to technological science. Being this low interest more evidenced in the girls than in the boys. This fact leads to the conclusion that young Z are effective in making use of technologies, however, do not reveal an interest in understanding it. In view of this, it is up to reflection on the need for educational actions that can make science teaching, especially that which involves the most interesting technologies, since the perception of students about science is certainly Influence on your academic and professional choices.

A Comparative Analysis of the Biological Parts of the National Curricula in Lower Secondary Education in the Czech Republic and Selected Post-Communist Countries

“…The most frequently mentioned reasons are that science subjects are not relevant and are isolated from pupils' everyday lives ) and therefore are perceived as difficult (Lyons, 2006;Shirazi, 2017) and boring (Ebenezer & Zoller, 1993;. In contrast, some studies revealed that lessons in some science disciplines (especially biology) are relatively popular among pupils (Prokop, Prokop & Tunnicliffe, 2007) and biological topics, such as human health, are more interesting for the pupils than technological science (da Silva et al, 2018). Also, the difficulty perceived by the pupils strongly differs between particular topics (Cimer, 2012).…”