A física onde os olhos não alcançam: uma proposta para o ensino de hidrostática no cotidiano dos postos de combustíveis

Abstract

The present research intends to understand the possible relation that the student establishes against the knowledge that he already has, from questionings in classroom about contents of Hydrostatic. It was intended to work with students' motivations in order to build a board of potentially significant contribuition to the teaching and learning process of the subject in question, based on what these learners experience beyond the classroom. The educational product resulting from this research is a didactic sequence aiming to contribute to a more effective understanding of Hydrostatic knowledge. The study included students from the second year of high school in a public school of Minas Gerais’ state. For the development of the work, the students' visit to a fuel station with a previously established schedule and dynamics was used as the main reference, where students interacted in a very engaging way with the mediator of that establishment. A process of preparation for the visit during some classes, individual reports to collect impressions about the visit, the holding of a science fair, seminars on hydrostatics, and a final evaluation, composed the board of actions for composition of the research. It has become apparent that alternative actions to present scientific content, such as the visit and the seminars, can be effective to awaken and motivate students to become more committed to school knowledge. The final evaluation, in which formal contents were collected, but associated with everyday situations, provided interesting data for a better understanding of the dynamics of the teaching strategy used. David Ausubel's Theory of Significant Learning and Paulo Freire's educational ideas were well-grounded in theoretical contributions to the work proposal. We believe that the results of this study may contribute to the search for alternative teaching proposals that may lead to better returns for the apprehension of scientific contents. Besides that, it is expected that, with the increase of curiosity, motivation and more interest, as demonstrated by the students in this research, other initiatives will emerge that may present alternative methodologies so that traditional pedagogical practices are not only used, especially in the discipline Physical.