We investigated the frequency of use of analogies in the articles in the magazine Ciência Hoje das Crianças. In the 143 issues published until February 2004, we found 136 analogies in 88 articles, and we classified them according to three of the criteria suggested by Curtis e Reigeluth (1984): 44,7 % represent the functional type; 86,5%, the verbal type and 51,1% have an analog worked during the development of the target. We observed that the number of analogies varied in a non-uniform manner, and that the largest analogy use occurred in 1995 once we mapped 30 presentations in this year. With regard to the level of agreement with the Teaching with Analogies model, we verified that the establishment of correspondences between the target and analog is not considered in 58,9%, and the identification of the limits of validity of the analog does not occur in 92,2%.
Analogies; Science education; Scientific popularization; Ciência Hoje das Crianças
