Abstract:

Over the past 10 years, were created several actions in educational policies for the democratization process of Brazilian educational system. Some of these national actions impacted the creation of the National Week of Science & Technology (NWST) and Weeks of Science and Technology (WSTS) in the states of Brazil. These actions were established in order to comply with the National Plan for Education and the National Curriculum Guidelines. Inside the State Week of Science and Technology in Science Fairs were created in the states of the Brazilian federation.

In the state of Espírito Santo in Brazil in 2012 was created the First State Fair of Science and Engineering – SFSE. In 2013, it was held the II SFSE whose theme was "Science, Health and Sport", inspired by the World Cup and the Olympics. Note that this process resulted in secondary schools conducting school science fairs (local fairs), which conjunction with the fair state sciences, which in turn, passed the national fairs to be articulated. Although many schools had been conducting trade shows for years, some of these schools produced a fair acculturation school science. Due to this fact, we produced some questions such as: how some schools have established this process of connection with state and national fairs? How fairs apparently articulated with science education? How schools are organized socio-economically to ensure their participation in the state fair?

Thinking from the perspective of focus Science-Technology-Society-Environment - STS/STSE, it is important to inquire about the pedagogical nature of pedagogical actions developed in schools and aimed at the SFSE: what are the indications of the STSE education in school projects presented? What theoretical and methodological guidelines may favor a STSE Education? Projects are only the area of Natural Sciences? The school projects present a scientific nature? Which school projects addressing local and regional reality of school? What kind of scientific content is covered and how it is addressed?

The objective of this research was to analyze the pedagogical potential of the I Fair of Science & Engineering of the Espírito Santo State (I SFSE) State the 9th Week of Science & Technology to seek innovative evidence of pedagogical practices focused on scientific literacy. This analysis was performed under the assumptions of education STSE and the pedagogy of Praxis. The subjects were exhibitors students and faculty advisers of the 42 selected projects from 34 state schools who participated in the I SFSE. This study had the main theoretical frameworks Glen Aikenhead, Troy Sadler, Moacir Gadotti and Paulo Freire. This was a qualitative research, the type case study, based on official documents, photographs, observations, interviews, questionnaires and interviews collected during the research. The results suggested evidence of a STSE education projects in the participating schools I SFSE, due to an innovative pedagogical practice and transforming schools. The case study of a high school, one of the exhibiting schools I SFSE, pointed indications that a scientific education developed based on the principles of Praxis of Education could be a STSE education, since both called for the formation of critical citizens. The analyzed school had a culture of working with projects throughout the school year, by area of knowledge and a quarter, integrated into the curriculum of the public school, culminating in Science Fairs.

Keywords:

pedagogy of praxis, scientific literacy, STSE education, science fair.