THE MENTAL MAP AS A DIDACTIC – PEDAGOGICAL RESOURCE IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION II: TOURISM AND LEISURE POSSIBILITIES OF STUDENTS AT ESCOLA MUNICIPAL BENEDITO DOS SANTOS BARBOSA IN ANGRA DOS REIS, RJ
School cartography, Elementary School II, Mind map, production of tourist and leisure space, Angra dos Reis.
Cartography is the area of knowledge that is concerned with studying, producing and disseminating graphic representations of space. In the school environment, it contributes substantially to the development of the student's spatial reasoning, encouraging a more critical reading of the world and attentive to the transformations that occur in geographic space in its different themes and scales. In this context, mental maps are established as a cognitivist cartographic approach to geography, by establishing that the perception of space occurs based on the individual's mental development (age), in addition to other factors such as spatial ability, taste for reading and availability of maps at home throughout life. On the one hand, these maps are established as spatial representations without the rigors of Cartesian cartography; on the other hand, they have enormous value in materializing the student's views and interpretations of space. The research aims to analyze the use of mental maps in geography classes in Elementary School II (6th and 7th year classes, respectively aged between 11 and 12 years old), relating the touristification process in the municipality of Angra dos Reis, in counterpoint with the leisure possibilities of students at Escola Municipal Benedito dos Santos Barbosa, in the Monsuaba neighborhood. For this, the methodological proposal of Action Research is used, which is characterized by the active participation of the subjects involved in the research. In this way, the researcher and the participants in the researched situation act in cooperation. The results will be presented in the defense of this dissertation.