A MODERN BIOLOGY COURSE FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL (1965-1972): THE CONFIGURATIONS OF THE BSCS BLUE VERSION CURRICULUM IN BRAZIL

Abstract

The article analyzes the socio-historical relations of the process of construction of the school discipline Biology for secondary school in the country, from the second half of the twentieth century. The study was supported by textbooks from the Biological Science Curriculum Study (BSCS) blue version vol. I and II, as historical sources, produced in 1962 in the context of the American scientific education renewal movement that was translated and adapted for Brazil between 1965 and 1972. The BSCS argued its curriculares organization based on Neodarwinism as an instrument to reformulate traditional areas of Natural History and introduced modernizing elements of the Biological Sciences as a mathematical and unified science. Under Francis Bacon's epistemology, the BSCS led the experimental / laboratory activities in the methodologies of teaching and learning Biology in secondary education.