Presentation of a Play Developed by Students of the Technical Course in Chemistry at Etec De São Manuel - Sp, Simulating an Episode of the Series: “Aeroporto São Paulo”

Abstract

Chemistry is a science considered difficult to understand, mainly due to the calculations involved, technical terms with "unfamiliar" names, lack of licensed teachers in chemistry, among other factors. The use of the active methodology with the effective participation of students is much more effective in consolidating concepts, including in the chemistry area. Numerous television programs address forensic science topics (eg: CSI, NCIS, Bones, Criminal Minds), but with restricted access (pay TV), which arouse the interest of countless young people for the use of chemistry in solving crimes, but do not show details important aspects of the techniques used. The objective of this work was to motivate students of the technical course in chemistry, through the use of an active methodology, demonstrating that it is possible to learn chemistry in a different way from traditional (expositive) classes. For this, students from Etec Dona Sebastiana de Barros, in the city of São Manuel-SP, watched some episodes of the series "Aeroporto São Paulo", in which the suspects were approached by Federal Police agents and after an interrogation and search of their luggage, the experts detected through the Scott test, positive reaction for cocaine (blue color). Thus, the students had to prepare and rehearse a play simulating the cocaine detection test (Scott test), similar to the one on the series Aeroporto São Paulo, and present it during the reception week for new students on the course. In current teaching practice, the use of an active methodology is advocated through playful, contextualized and participatory activity, aiming to improve the learning process on the part of students. In the case of this activity developed at school, there was good adherence by most students to present the play. Even the shyest students, who did not want to participate directly in the dialogues, collaborated with the ideas and participated as extras in the play or even presented other practices of colorimetric reactions, for developing the fingerprint. With this work, it was possible to verify the effectiveness of the active methodology "theatrical presentation" in the motivation of chemistry students, confirming that it is also possible to learn this science in a playful, practical and contextualized way.