Record books as a strategy in ecology education: fundations historical in Brazil

Abstract

The article brings a bibliographic review about the historical bases of Ecology with a didactic activity, demonstrating the importance of Brazil for the development of Ecology, based on the History and Philosophy of Biology. The activity was accomplished with students of the last year of high school in a public school in Goiânia, Goiás. We used three biology classes to organize the activity in three different moments: (1) classes-dialogue about naturalist journeys; (2) practical activity about what nineteenth-century naturalists did. We provided to each student a “log book” to make notes about the activity; and (3) class about the “log books” of Eugen Warming, nineteenth-century naturalist, comparing with the students works. The analysis of student’s log books showed that, although Warming’s method (texts, illustrations and collections) had not been detailed, they followed similar principles. Therefore, we realized this type of approach is specific and exact, avoiding generalizations. The HFB can help the future teacher to understand better the science that teaches, from epistemological aspects to the social and historical relations.