Perspective Environment, Science, Technology, Society (ESTS) in school textbooks of Natural Sciences of the 6^th grade

Abstract:

At the international level, as in Portugal, there is great importance attached to the textbook, being recognized as one of the most used features by teachers and students. Therefore, the textbook has become a subject of study of various investigations into the Didactics of Science. One of the lines of investigation concerns the Environment-Science-Technology-Society (ESTS) approach, considered by many researchers as one of the current trends of teaching the sciences capable of developing the scientific literacy of students. Thus, in this essentially qualitative study we built, and applied, an analytical tool to see if the Portuguese textbooks of Natural Sciences of 6th grade explore the scientific content relating them with technology, society and the environment and present ESTS nature activities. The results show that the ESTS approach is embedded in the analyzed textbooks, but insufficiently and not fully explored.

Keywords:
ESTS; Textbook; Basic education; Portugal; Scientific literacy; Science teaching