Science documentaries in teacher training courses: contributions to the critical reading on global warming

Abstract

In this study, we analyze an activity carried out with pre-service physics teachers from a federal institution in the state of São Paulo. The activity's main goal was to investigate the discourse produced by these teachers when engaging in a debate about the possible causes of global warming after watching two science documentaries. The first is called An Inconvenient Truth and the second The Great Global Warming Swindle. Both of them use rhetorical and symbolic strategies, as scientist testimonials, graphics, simulations, images, etc. to argue in favor of 1) Anthropogenic causes and 2) Natural causes of global warming. The following questions guided our analysis: Did the rhetorical strategies used in these documentaries contribute to the positioning of these pre-service teachers in relation to the causes of global warming? If so, in which way? To which extent may this contribute to the development of scientific media literacy activities in teacher training? The analysis was carried out with the theoretical support of French Discourse Analysis, mainly by means of the works published in Brazil by Eni Orlandi, as well as the scholarly of Science Communication and Documentary. The analysis suggests that documentary style along with historical and contextual aspects might influence the final positioning of teachers in relation to the causes of global warming.

Keywords

• documentários de ciências
• formação inicial de professores
• aquecimento global
• análise de discurso
• divulgação científica