Metáforas e analogias nos conteúdos programáticos de Geologia dos manuais escolares do 7º e do 10º ano de escolaridade

The metaphoric language has an outstanding role in the Earth Science teaching/learning process, considering its high heuristic and didactic potential. Through the use of a content analysis technique, this study attempts to establish the relationship between the metaphoric language present in the 7th and 10th grades students’ books, as suggested in the Geological programmatic contents, and the pre-defined aims of the curriculum current educational system reform. As the results of the analysis of curricular orientations and syllabus indicated, only the official curricula documents related to the current reform clearly refer the didactic exploration of metaphors and analogies. However the students’ books used in the current reform (ME2 e ME4) don’t show any evolution in what concerns the number of metaphors and/or analogies included.