Abstract:

The science comes in the lives of children, when taught or not, as they eventually acquire and develop ideas about the world around them. If they are causal, fall in knowledge of common sense.
However, the pre-concepts already acquired by the children, should become feasible, practicable and real in a short and long term. This requires ensuring that the activities to be carried out with them, in the context of the classroom or not, have to be the appropriate conceptual point of view, in the procedure and attitude, and must be contextualized, as much as possible with reality, throughout their lives to develop awareness of science and critical thinking.
It is urgent, to learn early to question, create reviews based around the world, thus allowing the full development and conscious of the citizen and in a more global, including the learning to learn, decision making, understanding the real world and know how to work in cooperation and be able to live with others without forgetting their own identity (Tenreiro-Vieira & Vieira, 2001).
The school maintains the role of choice in regard to training individuals, however, is appropriate, that it can not fail to find other ways to support meaningful learning with diverse and inclusive activities in that there is a link between the different environments of education: formal and non formal in science, able to develop in children knowledge, skills and attitudes to meet the basic training of critical citizens, participatory and able to follow the successive changes occurring in the society. The educational process needs new perspectives of teaching. Education in non-formal environments is therefore an opportunity, where children are confronted with problem situations, allowing them to acquire skills and information that directly coincide with school items, which facilitates the integration problems in the social / environmental / technological society of today and tools to monitor changes in the future (Praia, 2007).
In this sense the University of Aveiro has two spaces of non-formal education which are a school complement: O Jardim da Ciência, open air space with public target from 4 to 12 years and Fábrica Centro Ciência Viva, with a range of activities with a series of exhibitions which are specifically adapted to this public with knowledge-based interactive modules and exploitation of resources, that promote experiences that call for scientific inquiry and development of skills. This investigation intends to think on like these spaces of scientific divulgation and science education can promote the critical and scientific thought and the articulation curricular between same with the space of formal learning.

References:
Praia, J. (2006). A importância da cultura cientifica nas sociedades contemporâneas e formas de a promover. Educare-Educere, 18, 9-30.
Tenreiro-Vieira, C. e Vieira, R.M. (2001). Promover o Pensamento Crítico dos alunos – Propostas Concretas para a Sala de Aula. Porto: Porto Editora.