SOME BRIEF REFLEXIONS ABOUT THE ASTRONOMY EDUCATION IN BRAZIL

Archaeologia Baltica, 2008

This work aims to present a panorama of the space-time of certain Brazilian native peoples, and especially the Tupi-Guarani and the Apinayé, as reported by some of the early ethnologists who traveled to Brazil, including Paul Ehrenheich, Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Curt "Nimuendajú" Unkel, as well the Canadian naturalist C. F. Hartt. This ethnohistoric data is compared to recent fieldwork.

2017

In this paper, we present novel strategies and actions to engage the general public into liking Astronomy, such as the lending of high quality astronomical material to perform observations and hands-on activities (the Astrokit). This is of greater relevance, in environments with less resources like public schools or institutions in Brazil. Moreover, we show the importance of Science Museums as centres of non-formal education and the benefit resulting from the relationship museum-school. Worthy to note is the special synergy with teachers, who constitute an essential link within the astronomy education process and induce a multiplying effect derived from the direct access they have to a great number of students and other colleague teachers.

Science education international, 2018

The present research aims to analyze the publications related to astronomy education that discuss the interface between Formal Education and Non-Formal Education at scientific events and a Journal in the Brazilian context. These events were: National Symposium on Astronomy Education (SNEA), National Meeting on Research in Science Education (ENPEC), and National Symposium on Physics Teaching (SNEF). We also analyse the Journal Latin American Journal of Astronomy Education (RELEA). The objective is to understand how the approach between Formal Education and Non-Formal Education in the teaching of astronomy is constructed. The delimitation of the analyses cover the period 2001 - 2014, signaled by the constitution of Area 46 by Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), which regulates postgraduate programs in Brazil. In a theoretical-methodological aspect, the ideas of Content Analysis proposed by Bardin (2011) were adopted. Among the results, we observe that fe...

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union

This paper aims at contributing to the UNESCO-IAU Astronomy and World Heritage Initiative's discussions by presenting the case study of a 20th-century observatory located in a South American country. In fact, the National Observatory of Brazil was created in the beginning of the 19th century, but its present facilities were inaugurated in 1921. Through this paper a brief description of the heritage associated with the Brazilian observatory is given, focused on its main historical instruments and the scientific and social roles it performed along its history. By way of conclusion, the paper suggests that the creation of the Museum of Astronomy and Related Sciences with its multidisciplinary team of academic specialists and technicians was decisive for the preservation of that expressive astronomical heritage.

Nature Astronomy

Most of Brazil's territorry was inherited from the colonial period as a result of the Portuguese expansion in the Americas. When, in 1822, Brazil declared its independence from Portugal, its vast territory was little known by the central government in Rio de Janeiro. There was a great need to create reliable maps to delineate the new country's boundaries. This paper aims to present how practical application of astronomy, specifically geodesy, was vital in the efforts to build the nation. We follow the professional life of an astronomer, Luis Cruls, director of the National Observatory, professor at the Military School and chief researcher of several expeditions, to discuss the the strength of geodesic and cartographic activities in Brazil at the turn of the 19th century.

Science & Education, 2001

This article presents somedidactic material and educational experiences whichhave been developed by the Teknê Group in Brazil.The work is part of a major project which aims atimproving teaching of science. Science is presented ina broader context of culture, where the theories areno discovered but built by historic men based on theinterpretation of facts. The first part of thisarticle shows some of the principles which informTeknê Group's work, followed by a description ofmaterial and experiences which are used in Brazilianschools.

This paper focuses on the astronomy teaching at the Lisbon Polytechnic School and its role in building a modern technoscientific state in Portugal during the nineteenth century. It examines particularly the case of Filipe Folque, who taught astronomy and geodesy at the Lisbon Polytechnic from 1837 to 1856, and played a pivotal role in the geodetic survey carried out in the second half of the nineteenth century. As director of the Portuguese Geodetic and Topographical Office, Folque delineated in detail the plan to proceed with the geodetic survey, a plan which involved a significant number of his former students at the Lisbon Polytechnic. Yet, Folque's influence went beyond the geodetic achievement. Folque contributed decisively for shaping the character of astronomy and of the astronomical community in Portugal. In a period in which spherical astronomy raised to the status of an autonomous discipline, Folque became one of the most outstanding proponents of this discipline in Portugal. He conceived a course on spherical astronomy at the Lisbon Polytechnic and published an influential textbook to be adopted as a didactic tool in astronomical classes. By doing so, Folque took active part in a nineteenth century culture of textbooks production, and positively influenced the consolidation and shaping of astronomy as a discipline.

Tipiti 2011

This article curates excerpts from astronomical narratives recorded in Palikur between 2000 and 2008 along the Rio Urucauá, in theÁrea Indígena do Uaçá on the border of Brazil and French Guiana. The material assembles around the seasonal cycle of stars associated with particular rains and seasonal changes in the landscape. Star maps of the major constellations are counterposed with wood carvings of the constellations. The curation of these narratives and carvings serves three arguments. First, the figures in this mythical cycle offer multiple references to Amerindian astronomies documented across lowland and highland South America. While the contemporary Palikur population knows its history as that of a federation of Amerindian groups and as one that has drawn Africans and Asians, slaves and settlers into its midst in relatively recent generations, the extent of the links that these texts offer to Amerindian astronomies elsewhere mitigates against representing this astronomy in culturalist terms as "Palikur ethnoastronomy". Rather, we argue, the material augments the view that astronomical knowledge in the region affirms the history of a vast and extended network among Amerindian populations. Second, the material demonstrates that astronomical knowledge is strongly present in everyday practices and in narratives of residents along the Rio Urucauá. That it is spoken of very little in the everyday, we argue, reflects not so much the forgetting of oral knowledge -since the material has not been forgotten -but the complex choices people make on a day to day basis in navigating the rationalities associated with citizenship of wider collectives, including the global economy, the frontier towns of Brazil and French Guiana, and a range of church groups of which significant sectors readily render Amerindian astronomies as somewhere between maleficent and irrational. The third argument moves toward rethinking the representation of Amerindian astronomy with attention to the ways in which the memory of movement serves alongside the memory of star patterns to establish the references that make star positions predictable in the seasons. Yet while the memory of movement is translatable with reference to axes and lines, the ontology that gives them meaning is that of the movements of living beings: anacondas, ancestors, a tortoise, shamans, birds, with whom the elders had relationships. While the material is readily presented in the global language of information, to borrow from Bruno Latour (2010), the sorrow that accompanies some of the tellings speak of people's loss of astronomy in the everyday as a loss of the language of transformation: a way of knowing that implies presence and relationality.

International Handbook of Research in History, Philosophy and Science Teaching, 2013

This paper addresses the context of emergence, development, and current status of the use of history and philosophy of science in science education in Brazil. After a short overview of the three areas (history of science, philosophy of science, and science education) in Brazil, the paper focuses on the application of this approach to teaching physics, chemistry and biology at the secondary school level. The first Brazilian researches along this line appeared more consistently in