The qualitative analysis of biochemical content in textbooks of elementary school

Biochemistry is the science that deals with the metabolic functions of living beings. In its concepts, it uses chemistry and biology to study the interactions of organisms with the environment. For basic education students is often complex the association of biochemistry with their daily lives, especially in elementary school where they have their first contact with science in school and the didactic book will serve as an important tool for research. Thus, this work aims to analyze qualitatively content related to biochemistry in science books of the final years of elementary school. Methods: We analyzed six science books used in elementary school, and the following criteria were examined: clarity and language presented on the inserted content; resolutions and images shown subtitles, and interdisciplinarity of matters. Results and discussion: The books of the sixth and fifth years were those who achieved the expected learning goals. The first of then made a very good presentation of the content and the images, addressing the subject in an interdisciplinary way. However, the second one is well below in the analyzed criteria, bringing the matter in a vague writing, and failing in associate the content with other assumptions themes. The images had a very low quality and their explanations were difficult to associate. Conclusion: We can say that the biochemistry content are complex, however its development from the beginning of primary education contributes to overcoming the complexity of their understanding. The analysis of the books brought a result that was expected. Only one book had significantly positive results in all analyzed characteristics, the other books had some very good aspects, but in several details, they were vague and poorly contextualized. Approaching the school sciences to the student every day we can demystify scientific knowledge and its production.