Science education through experimentation and problem-based learning: "The food and our health"

Science  education  in  schools  goes  through  a  crisis  in  their  teaching-learning process,  due  to  the  fact  that  their  contents  are  developed  out  of  context,  merely bookish,  so  students  have  a  fragmented  and  inadequate  perception  of  scientific knowledge.  Thus,  the  aim  of  this  study  is  to  present  a  proposal  for  science education developed from experimental activities carried out on short courses for public  school  students  in  Uruguaiana-RS.  This  study  is  descriptive  and  was developed from the accompanying of these activities. Courses lasts five days and have problem-based learning as method, students are the center of the teaching-learning  process,  being  the  mainly  responsible  for  the  development  of experimental  activities,  they  use  the  relationship  between  food  and  health  as  a guiding  theme  in  their  research,  in  order  to  develop  a  contextualized  and interdisciplinary practice. In the period 2010-2011 were conducted seven courses, attended  185  students.  These  courses  have  been  characterized  by  four  steps, problematization, experimentation, theorizing, and closing. Students are stimulated to  take  inventory  of  their  doubts  about  the  topic  of  the  course,  and  then  prepare their own experiments to try to solve the initial questioning. At the end, they must present  the  experiments  and  findings  to  the  group.  Through  these  courses  were identified that problem-based learning leads to an active involvement of students, providing  contact  with  the  scientific  method.  Moreover,  it  was  observed  that  the experimental  activities  become  more  attractive  and  challenging  the  search  for knowledge.  Therefore,  this  proposal  constitutes  an  important  tool  for  improving science education in schools.