Colisões e leis de Conservação em Mecânica: Perspectivas Espontâneas e Disciplinares

Abstract

The present work reports the elaboration, application and evaluation of the impact of instructional materials, approaching the principle of conservation of mechanical energy and using collision experiments. The study was carried out with 15 students from the Third Year of High School at Simon Bolívar, a public school in the city of Corumbaíba-GO. Noting that at the beginning of 2021 it was not feasible to apply the educational product, because due to the spread of (COVID-19) the activities of the (CESB), were suspended closing the educational institutions and that with the return to classes on the second semester of 2021, we resumed the process of applying the educational product in the respective months from November to December. These experiments are guided by Ausubel's meaningful learning hypothesis and Moreira's elaboration of a potentially meaningful teaching unit and by Gérard Vergnaud's conceptual field theory. The data collection tools are questionnaires, questions throughout the teaching material and student opinion questionnaires. Data analysis has a qualitative approach. Assessment results show that students have difficulties when asked to give a more detailed explanation of collision phenomena. The activities to answer and discuss questions contained in the teaching material can provide moments of social interaction and negotiation of meanings. Student comments indicate that the use of experiments is widely accepted and considered relevant to the teaching/learning process of the concepts covered. These results suggest a potentially important teaching material to facilitate meaningful learning of the principles of conservation of mechanical energy among high school students.