In the school context, motivation is an important aspect of the learning process in the classroom, because the intensity and quality of the involvement required to learn depends very much on it. Therefore, student motivation is considered as the main determinant of success and school quality. In Brazil, the processes involving science and biology teaching are often abstract and permeated by a traditional and mechanistic approach to teaching, in which there is a prevalence of information transmission, reception, lack of association of contents with everyday life, and memorization. This work aimed to list and analyze strategies that promote and / or are associated to the motivation to learn biology among high school students in Brazil and other countries in relation to the methodological practices and pedagogical actions used by teachers for this purpose. From the search in the portals and periodicals 16 articles, published between 2007 and 2017, were selected according to the established criteria to reach the objectives of this research. Of the 16 articles selected, 10 are from Brazil, two from Kenya, and one from the USA, Turkey, Indonesia and Nigeria. Of the articles selected from Brazil: four are from São Paulo, two from Rio Grande do Sul. The results showed that strategic pedagogical activities and practices that stimulate metacognition, as well as the content being contextualized with students everyday life, the induction of group discussions, the support of the school, TIC use, didactic plurality and sequence, and proposed problem solving resulted in an increase in students motivational levels.