Astronomical Perception Of The Secondary Schools Students In São Paulos State School In Suzano City

Abstract

Although Astronomy is one of the oldest Sciences in the world and many of its concepts are popular, it is possible to observe that a major part of the students do not know about them. This work aims to analyse the basic knowledge of the secondary school´s students of a state school in the city of Suzano, related to the astronomical phenomena, which surround them. It was carried out a questionnaire of multiple choice to 34 students from the first grade, night classes, of the state school Batista Renzi. From the sample, 34 students, only 29.4% of them could understand the succession of the days; 20.6% could explain the seasons of the year and 20.6% had some idea about celestial objects nearer to the Earth. In turn, 67.6% correctly classified the Sun as a star; 55.9% related the Big Bang to the origin of Universe; only 20.6% identified the light-year as an unit of distance and 32.4% recognized a falling star as a meteor. The actual analysis was expanded to more 310 students of other classes, grades and periods of the same school. In this first stage, it can be noted the students´ little discernment of the astronomical events and mainly the great confusion about the appropriate meaning of popular astronomical terms.