Uma proposta didática para o ensino de tópicos da Teoria da Relatividade Restrita

Abstract

The rapid scientific and technological development that is currently undergoing humanity seems to arouse a significant interest of students in matters of Physics related to these advances. Many of these themes involve Modern and Contemporary Physics (FMC); but the contents of this part of Fisica are generally, not included in the teaching plans in most schools. Given the above, the proposal in this work is to elaborate a Didactic Sequence (SD) aiming to attract students to the FMC content, addressing the Theory of Special Relativity (TRR). We seek to plan SD in order to make the study of TRR more accessible and understandable, as well as more contextualized, in the perspective of obtaining traces of a more effective learning of this content. The Didactic Sequence was planned from a cut of the concepts of referential, space and time to approach the basics concepts of TRR, such as temporal dilation, spatial contraction, the mass-energy equivalence relationship, and their correlations. The application of SD took place over seven classes for a class of the 3rd year of Youth and Adult Education (EJA). David Ausubel's Theory of Meaningful Learning was used as a theoretical framework. The proposed activities were designed to be developed in small groups, with the intention that students built their knowledge in a more dynamic and participatory, allowing a better dialogue between teaching and learning. As a data collection instrument, priority was given to the textual production of the students, in order to seek evidence of a conceptual evolution more solid and reflective. The results pointed to a picture of relative success, resulting from the exposure, discussion and verification of applications of the contentes approached, which allows us to guarantee the indication and feasibility of the teaching of TRR in basic education.