A look at the historical aspects of the periodic table present in popular science texts published in Galileu Magazine

• Autor(a) principal: Lopes Romero, Adriano
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Borin da Cunha, Marcia
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Actio (Curitiba)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.utfpr.edu.br/actio/article/view/10888
• topic: Educação / Métodos e Técnicas de Ensino; Ensino de Química; Divulgação da Ciência; Classificação periódica dos elementos químicos.; Chemical education; Popularization of science; Periodic classification of chemical elements.

This year celebrates the International Year of the Periodic Table (PT), a fact that makes this theme widely explored by teachers and researchers in the area of Chemical Education, as well as being a frequent subject in popular science magazines. Thus, taking into account the importance of popular science texts (PSTs) in science education, the present work aimed to identify and evaluate historical aspects of PT present in PSTs published in Galileu Magazine. With this study, we intend to verify the feasibility of using PSTs about PT in teaching contexts, such as in the initial and continuing formation of chemistry teachers, or for high school chemistry education. This is a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory research, conducted directly on the magazine website using the descriptor “periodic table”. Four categories were used to analyze the selected PSTs: (i) the number of personage mentioned; (ii) who produced the PST? (iii) indication of scientific publications as reference; (iv) existence of iconography; (v) historical knowledge, formal and conceptual aspects related to PT. The research resulted in 21 PSTs, ten published this year, a fact that should be related to UNESCO's tribute to the development of the PT. Of the total PSTs selected, only seven presented historical information related to PT. Six of these PSTs were published this year, corroborating the idea that PT's historic development is important to understand what we are celebrating this year. We note that only two of the PSTs that present historical aspects of PT, which are translations of texts originally published in English in the site The Conversation, were produced by researchers, the others are signed by the journal's editorial staff. Regarding the other criteria analyzed, we observed that some PSTs (n = 4) mention a considerable number of personages, reaching 23, and others do not mention any (n = 1) or just one personage (n = 2); only one PST cites scientific publication as reference; all PSTs use one (n = 1), 2 (n = 2) or more images (n = 5) to illustrate the discussions presented. Regarding historical knowledge, formal and conceptual aspects related to PT we note that the clippings used by the authors may reinforce some errors that have been pointed out by historians and philosophers of chemistry, such as the priority of PT, and the genius of personages involved with the development of certain scientific facts. We consider that the PSTs about PT analyzed can be worked both in high school chemistry education, as well as in the initial and continuing education of chemistry teachers, as they can contribute significantly to explore aspects that are not generally explored in chemistry textbooks.