Reinventing for inclusion: Report of experience of the ‘APAE IN SENAC’ project in response to the challenges of social isolation

Abstract

This work is a report of the experience of the extension project 'APAE no SENAC: a contribution to an inclusive society', conducted by the SENAC Águas de São Pedro in “emergency remote” (ERE) mode, during a period when face-to-face meetings were not possible. For the development of the activities, the active gamification methodology was chosen as a strategy for stimulating cognitive skills, such as inductive reasoning, memorization, and attention. The activities took place throughout 2021, via meetings on the Zoom platform. It was found that gastronomy has considerable potential to promote social inclusion for people with intellectual difficulties. The importance of interdisciplinarity activities in university extension programs, and the use of active methodologies and gamification as a relevant strategy for constructing knowledge in education, were also observed.