Ensino de ciências e desafios contemporâneos: investigando desinformações em livros didáticos no contexto das ciências da natureza

Abstract

Contemporary society, marked by the intensification of digital information flows, faces growing challenges related to the dissemination of misinformation, fake news, and scientific denialism. In the educational context, such phenomena directly affect the development of students’ critical thinking, demanding the creation of new pedagogical strategies that integrate media and information literacy. This dissertation aims to analyze how Natural Science textbooks address the issue of misinformation, focusing on the evaluation of scientific information. How do Natural Science textbook collections approach the topic of misinformation as a contribution to the development of students’ critical stance toward contemporary misinformation? To answer this question, a qualitative, documentary-based approach was adopted, grounded in Laurence Bardin’s content analysis methodology. Two collections approved by the National Textbook and Teaching Materials Program (PNLD 2024), referred to as Collections A and B, were selected based on their wider distribution in public schools in São Luís, Maranhão. The analysis focused on identifying categories such as the presence of content related to misinformation; strategies for checking and verifying information; promotion of Media and Information Literacy (MIL); and the treatment of denialism and pseudoscience. Data interpretation was based on the critical inference of textbook texts, seeking to identify regularities, gaps, and silences related to media and scientific competencies. The results show that both analyzed collections address misinformation in a limited way, lacking depth or continuity. Although they discuss important topics such as health, climate change, and pseudoscience, they do not systematically integrate MIL into the curriculum. The lack of articulation with student materials is evident in the analyses. The research highlights the urgency of including these and other themes critically, with more robust content, preparing students to face misinformation in the contemporary context.