Paleontology and basic education: analysis of Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais and textbooks in Juiz de Fora, MG, Brazil. Paleontology has a crucial role in teaching Science and Biology for helping to understand different natural processes, although there is limited space in its school approach. It is necessary to understand how its content has been worked by the teachers, both quantitatively and qualitatively. In order to understand how their themes are addressed by basic education textbooks, in private and public schools in Juiz de Fora, after analyzing the Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (National Curriculum Parameters, translated by the authors) - PCNs and their guidelines, from the sixth to the ninth year of elementary school and of the entire high school, a table of presence or absence was set up, with the main themes in Paleontology indicated, analyzing which were present in each book. For qualitative analysis, 11 questions were listed. The analysis included 22 themes in 18 elementary school and 15 high school books. High school books had the largest number of topics covered, with 123 presences, and elementary school, 69. The most present themes were: “Origin of Life”, “Theory of Evolution” and “Fossil Concept”; the least addressed: “Types of Fossils”, “Fossils as Non-Renewable Natural Resources” and “Great Extinctions”. Most books deal with subjects with no connection with other areas, without contextualization, with rare interdisciplinarity and relationship with environmental issues, necessary to confront science denialism and the recent risks of educational retrogression. The results reveal the importance of broadening the discussion on how to address Paleontology in basic education, assessing school incentives, teachers’ motivation, the perception of the importance of teaching this science, and the use of other tools besides the textbook. Keywords: science teaching, Base Nacional Comum Curricular, school, environmental education, fossils.
