PERCEPTIONS ON PALEONTOLOGICAL HERITAGE AND PLACE-BASED EDUCATION IN GEOsCIENCES

Paleontological heritage is a unique record of the history of life on Earth that preserves biogeological evolution and dynamics. The teaching of paleontology in Brazil inaugurates the patrimonial teaching in paleontology, that aims to awaken protective actions to the paleontological heritage. In this way we seek to understand how the fossils and quarries are perceived by the students living in their surroundings. Participated of this research 17 students of the Education of Young and Adults of the Francisco Rodrigues do Nascimento school, located in the settlement Mocambo, rural area of José de Freitas, Piauí. In the neighborhood of the school are a Limestone quarry dated from Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) that preserves many fossils, which include mollusks, brachiopods, and trilobites. The students answered a questionnaire about fossils and the quarry located in their community. Are these stones around here? 70% of the students said it was possible to find them near their homes, 20% did not know how to respond and 10% said they were found in the water or dam. What are? The answers obtained are organized in 10% saying that they are old stones, 5% say they are rocks they use in the bathroom of home and 85% of these students did not know to answer. What are these rocks for? 80% did not know how to respond, 5% said they were used for study purposes, 5% said they were used to build the foundation, and 6% said they were good for grind knife. Among the last questions we asked them if they knew how those rocks formed, where 95% did not know how to respond and 5% attributed to a mysterious or divine process. The data presented expresses that the content of rocks and fossils is not very significant for the students, but also demonstrates the fragile base in which the students meet, suggesting that these contents are approached in an incomplete way, causing such results. In interpreting the data, we suggest the organization of students 'perceptions in three visions: 1) resignation, 2) recognition and 3) protection, these visions must be identified to build a teaching methodology consistent with the students' reality, especially in the which refers to the geoscientific knowledge, so that the teaching is effective and contextualized leading to a process of significance of the paleontological heritage. [PIBIC/CNPq projeto 800801/2016-4/ IFPI]