Educação estatística: uma investigação com estudantes do Ensino Médio apoiada no Dollar Street

Abstract

Research in the area of Mathematics Education reveals that few students have direct contact with statistical investigations, which enable them to develop skills in analyzing, arguing and discussing real data from various situations in their social life. These skills are associated with Statistical Literacy. Statistical literacy is important for students to develop the ability to argue based on theory and data about situations experienced in their daily lives. This research aimed to investigate how the use of technological resources can contribute to the statistical literacy of students in Basic Education. In this sense, the question that guided our investigation was: "How can a data collection task on the Dollar Street, tool available on the Gapminder website, contribute to Statistical Literacy?" For this investigation, we opted for participant observation. Our research involved the participation of three high school students who were involved in a Junior Scientific Initiation project by the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU). The process was divided into four stages: the first was to understand what the students knew about the types of data and introduce them to the Dollar Street ; the second stage involved the participants' exploratory browsing of the website; the third stage instructed them to search for information on the topic; in the fourth and final stage, the participants produced news stories, organizing the information they had collected. We observed that the exploration of data in photographic images, such as those offered by Dollar Street, allowed the students to acquire a richer and more contextualized understanding of social issues.