Botany on the spot: collaborative production of didactic material for elementary and high school students

Abstract

Botany is an important area within the Biological Sciences, yet many times neglected by teachers during the official schooling period. Literature has pointed out that teachers generally do not teach botanical contents, or teach them somehow superficially and/or inadequately, during Elementary and High School levels. The present paper brings the results of a collaborative approach applied with undergraduate students from a federal institute in Sao Paulo – Brazil, during an elective curricular subject of Biological Sciences in 2016. We aimed at promoting interaction, sharing of skills amongst students, and enhancing every member’s active voice in the group. Various and diversified didactic materials were produced during the application of the approach. We have concluded that students can be enhanced to be protagonists of their own learning and produce didactic material to be applied for learning and teaching of botany. Curricular changes that might absorb alternative ways to teach and learn botany are possible.