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It's Raining Microplastics! Now What?
Original title: Está chovendo microplásticos! E agora?
Summary
This Brazilian-language paper describes classroom activities for high school students exploring microplastic pollution through the lens of organic chemistry and polymer science, developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students engaged with the 'it's raining microplastics' theme to learn about real-world environmental chemistry. It is an environmental chemistry education paper.
It's raining microplastics! And now?. This paper describes in-person and online interventions, designed for the pandemic moment, with third-year high school students from a state school in the Baixada Fluminense, RJ, with the objective of exploring the generator theme Plastics and Microplastics in the teaching of organic chemistry/polymers. The design was based on the guidelines of the Common National Curriculum Base, the curriculum of the State of Rio de Janeiro, PNLD 2021 textbooks and the Sustainable Development Goals of the UNESCO Agenda 2030. Results show that the subject, so present in our daily lives, was practically unknown by the students, and serve to reinforce is the necessity to discuss and develop this theme in elementary and secondary education. In addition to promote Chemistry teaching by bringing students closer to science and technology, it was also possible to promote critical reasoning and reflections about sustainable consumption and proper disposal of plastic waste.