Ciência e religião no ensino de ciências: visões de mundo de professores do ensino básico e o ensino do tema “origem do universo”

Abstract

The subject of the Origin of the Universe is popular and socially relevant, and its teaching is encouraged by official documents such as the Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC) and the Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (PCN). But when we try to work with it in the classroom, it ends up generating a clash between worldviews, raising many questions about the relationship between science and religion. Based on this observation, bibliographic reviews of publications that study this encounter indicate the need for more studies to help demonstrate the importance of working on the relationship between science and religion in science teaching, especially when discussing the subject of the Origin of the Universe. This research set out to accomplish this task, with the general objective of analyzing the perceptions of physics teachers with different worldviews and conceptions of the relationship between science and religion on the subject of the Origin of the Universe. Based on the questions raised by the general objective, it verified the hypotheses: teachers do not have an adequate scientific understanding of the origin of the universe; there are associations involving worldviews and some views on the relationship between science and religion; there is no association between worldview and an adequate scientific understanding of the origin of the universe; there are associations between some views on the relationship between science and religion and the level of scientific understanding of the origin of the universe. The work was based on studies that discuss: worldview, talking about the development of this concept, its definition adopted here and its importance for science teaching; the relationship between science and religion, seeking to define science and religion, their possible relationship and their influence on science teaching; and the Origin of the Universe, presenting the Standard Model of Cosmology, its supports, problems and connection with religion, especially Christianity, and what its impact is on science teaching. It will follow a descriptive approach, in a survey-type design. The participants in the survey were students and graduates of the Programa de Pós-Graduação Profissional em Ensino de Física (PPGPF) at the Universidade Federal de Sergipe (UFS), all of whom were current physics teachers. It was carried out online, through responses to a questionnaire sent by e-mail. The data will be analyzed quantitatively. With regard to the results obtained, it is worth stating that the main one was the observation of a general lack of understanding of the subject on the part of the teachers, and that it was not possible to relate this problem to any of the worldviews or views on the relationship between science and religion. This shows that the problems with teaching the origin of the Universe are really significant. There is a need for proposals to improve the teaching of this subject, especially with the use of history and philosophy of science, so that content can be discussed together with the context in which it was developed, helping to acquire a broader view of science and its relationship with other social spheres, such as religion.