The municipality of Curitiba (PR) expanded its participation in the TIM Faz Ciência program in 2016. Last year, 6,715 students and 134 teachers from 46 schools received the materials from the program. This year, TFC is present in almost 70% of municipal schools in Curitiba, the country’s 8th largest city. There are 136 schools involved, with approximately 250 teachers and 15,000 students participating.
This growth is due to the good feedback about the program that the Curitiba Municipal Department of Education received from teachers in 2015. Henrique Gomes, member of the Science team of the Basic Education Division of the Department says that when the Division received the teaching materials from TFC last year, the team decided to contact the program team to implement it as a pilot with a small number of schools and teachers. “It worked well and we opened to all teachers in the city to enroll this year”, says Henrique.
The number of training meetings increased to eight, so that all intellectual operations could be deeply discussed during the trainings. “What Science has of most interesting is the scientific methodology approach, and TIM Faz Ciência deals with it. The operations are very well defined and tied at the same time”, says Henrique. The last meeting will be a colloquium on November 17th and the teachers will be invited to present the activities carried out during the year.
TFC on Full-time Education
In schools that offer full-time education in Curitiba, teachers are incorporating the activities of TFC in Science and Technologies Practices. One third of the municipal schools that offer full-time education enrolled in the program this year, and teachers had specific training on TFC organized by Kelly Aguiar, from the Full-time Education team of the Basic Education Division. “I worked with the Student’s Book, showed the materials and made an interface between the content and methodologies in Science and Technologies Practices and the ones from TIM Faz Ciência”, she explains.
Kelly also created a group on Whatsapp with the teachers from full-time education that participate in TFC, in which they share photos of activities and tell what they are doing along the courses. She comments that teachers are really enjoying the teaching materials and the training provided by professors José Sérgio de Carvalho and Lilian Faversani. “The teachers realize how the material can support activities in any area, not only in Science”, she says.
