Educação ambiental com o jogo SIMCITY: contribuições para as aulas de geografia do 7º ano do ensino fundamental

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate the potentialities of the simulation game Sim City as a didactic resource for Geography teaching, with emphasis in Environmental Education. This study is justified due to the need of understanding and adopting new educative interventions which favor the geographic learning, using virtuais tools, ordinary at student’s daily routine, enabling, therefore, an educative process aiming at social transformation. Therefore, it was verified, through evaluations, a meaningful improvement in the learning degree of Environment Education themes in Geography classes, by students of Elementary School at Escola Estadual Raul Soares, in the municipality of Araguari, Minas Gerais state, through the use of the game SimCity. This study had a brief perception report by the students of 7th grade, concerning the experience they’ve lived after using the game as a learning tool. The methodology used, based on the learning method SEI (Sequence of Learning by Investigation) was divided in six steps: the application of a problematic situation in the classroom; the application of the game to the students; the explanation, debate and a resume in the classroom of the main themes regarding Environmental Education, contextualizing with current urban problems; the analysis and quantification through directed evaluations, students’ learning; tabulation and interpretation of the data obtained during previous steps, presented in graphics; presentation of results. We’ve noticed that the game SimCity has great potentialities as a didactic tool for Geography classes, not only in the approach of the environmental theme, as for several other themes, because the students feel they belong to the learning process, and are able to visualize the classes as fun games, and knowledge sources.