Astronomy teaching in the elementar education in accordance with the new guidelines of the Base Nacional Comum Curricular

Abstract

The guidelines for Astronomy teaching in the elementar education are contradictory in official documents of brazilian education – they are not recommended by the Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (PCN), but are among the evaluation criteria of the Programa Nacional do Livro e do Material Didático (PNLD). Recently, the Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC) was approved, a normative document that changes the all structure of basic education in Brazil. Its determinations may bring significant changes to the science curriculum and text books. Given this scenario, we present a documental research, which aims to identify in the BNCC the direction of teaching Astronomy contents in the first years of the education. The results show that most subjects in Astronomy are determined by the BNCC for teaching in the early years of elementary school. However, contents that require a greater degree of abstraction and spatial ability to understand them, such as seasons of the year and moon phases, were not indicated. As for the approach method, activities of direct observation of the stars and celestial phenomena are part of the development of this knowledge at BNCC.