Global Journal of Human Social Science, G: Linguistics and Education, Volume 21 Issue 14

Conceptions about Teaching DNA in Basic Education: A Reading based on Henri Atlan Elaine Ferreira Machado α , Ingrid Aline de Carvalho Ferrasa σ , Awdry Feisser Miquelin ρ , Adriane Marie Salm Coelho Ѡ & Nestor Cortez Saavedra Filho ¥ Abstract- This article aims to analyze the conceptions about the teaching of DNA present in the discourse of high school biology teachers and in the Biology Textbooks (BT) of the last National Textbook Plan (PNLD), according to the conceptions of Henri Atlan. The qualitative research used a questionnaire for teachers in the area, and also Biology textbooks for data collection and analysis, in order to answer the following problem situation: What are the concepts of DNA used by teachers and also reinforced by LD for and in Biology teaching ? The data reveal that teachers work with conceptions of DNA teaching as a program the computer, and this concept is also used in Biology textbooks, which presupposes articulating more appropriate terminologies for teaching this molecule due to current studies on epigenetics, in which the complexity of possible combinations of DNA lead to complex and integrative biochemical production. DNA (desoxirribonucleic acid) should be considered a set of complex data, rather than a single and linear program, addressed in the speeches of teachers in the classroom as well as in the adopted textbooks, in a complex notion proposed by Henri Atlan. Keywords: DNA; PNLD; biology teaching and learning; epigenetics. I. I ntroduction Henri Atlan, French physician, biophysicist and philosopher, was born in 1931 in Algeria. Gathering knowledge in the area of biology, physics and computing, he presents in his research the complexity of knowledge between the natural sciences and the human sciences, starting to describe from ontology and epistemology in an anthropological approach to the direct link between these sciences. In face of this, we can refer to the knowledge systematized in basic education. How do Biology teachers articulate knowledge about DNA at school? And, how do school textbooks systematize such knowledge? Does the conception of DNA by the teachers and the one present in the textbooks characterize it as data or a program? How would it be possible, by mediating knowledge about DNA at school, to present teachers with a more complex and integrative terminology? And could the teaching materials have a more integrative organization regarding the approach to teaching DNA? Thus, analyzing the teaching conception that basic education teachers articulate at school, as well as the textbooks of the last PNLD used in teaching Biology, from the perspective of Henri Atlan, may open up new fields of problematization. Such problematizations occur in the sense of pointing out the current condition of the appropriation of school knowledge, as well as new terminologies that enable conceptual approaches for and in the teaching of Biology, in a more integrative and complex way of knowledge, according to Morin (2013). II. H enri A tlan's E pigenetics for B iology T eaching and L earning The knowledge taught at school and present in the school curriculum and in the textbooks of basic education articulate conceptions which, many times, it is necessary to problematize them. Narrowing the channel between the school field and the knowledge articulated Y © 2021 Global Journals Volume XXI Issue XIV Version I 13 ( G ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2021 Author α σ : Teacher from public Basic Schools/ State Education Secretary in Paraná State – Brazil and Researcher of the Art, Science and Technology Research Group from Federal University of Technology – Parana (UTFPR). e-mails: elabio03@gmail.com, idynic@gmail.com Author ρ : Professor of the Teaching Academic Department from Federal University of Technology – Parana (UTFPR) – Brazil, and Coordinator Researcher of the Art, Science and Technology Research Group from the Post Graduate Program of Science and Education Teaching. e-mails: awdry@utfpr.edu.br, awdryfei@gmail.com Author Ѡ : Professor of the Teaching Academic Department from Federal University of Technology – Parana (UTFPR) – Brazil, and Researcher of the Art, Science and Technology Research Group from the Post Graduate Program of Science and Education Teaching. e-mail: adriane.salm@gmail.com Author ¥ : Professor of the Physics Academic Department from Federal University of Technology – Parana (UTFPR) – Brazil, and Researcher of the Art, Science and Technology Research Group from the Post Graduate Program of Science and Education Teaching. e-mails: nestorsf@utfpr.edu.br, nestorsf@gmail.com Based on the great discoveries occurred between the decades of 1960 and 1970 in molecular biology, Henri Atlan develops his theory of "complexity from noise" (ATLAN, 1992). Although some aspects have been clarified regarding the structure of DNA, its role in human reproduction, its duplication, the transmission of information to new generations within the cells and that genes are DNA molecules, Atlan has since attributed misconceptions to the design of the gene. For the author, considering DNA as a “genetic program” is just a mistaken metaphor (ATLAN, 2003). In this aspect, it is based on models from physics and chemistry for its concept of self-organization, in order to show that the genetic code is a projection of the linear structures of DNA, for those of proteins, that is, a coding, that is not to be confused with a program (idem, 2003).