O uso das atividades experimentais investigativas como ferramenta de ensino para auxiliar o professor de ciências nos conteúdos de física

Abstract

In light of the difficulties found by science teachers related to the transposition of Physics topics to the students, often due to a lack laboratories suited for practical activities, allied to the fact that the topics of Physics are taught only in the last quarter of the year, and added to the deficiencies on the teachers’ academic formation, whom had only a slight contact with Physics during their graduation, is that this research was developed. It aims to produce a manual with experimental investigative activities for the module of Sciences, more precisely tailored for the ninth Year of Elementary Education II, in order to help the teachers of this module to complement the theoretical content already being studied in the classrooms. The Science textbooks used nowadays bring only few examples of experimental activities that can be conducted. These experiments often do not stimulate the students to debate and are rapidly presented only in the end of each chapter. Given this context, our research proposes experimental investigative activities for the developed manual. This type of experimental activity does not have a predetermined script, it is a hands-on activity, in which the students have to debate, propose hypothesis and develop experiments to test and solve a problem. The manual produced in this research was tested by a science teacher, who also evaluated it by means of questionnaires. The manual was further assessed by this project researcher through the observation of the use of the manual by the science teacher. All the data collected through these multiple assessments were analyzed according to a qualitative research approach. With regard to the results achieved by this research, we found that there are difficulties in the development of investigative experimental activities, leading to a recurrence of the traditional practice model, which may be due to the inefficiency of an initial training or continuing teacher training. However, it was satisfactory to present the school with a new activity in order to help science teachers to overcome the obstacles of teaching. As well, this research has also served to open possibilities for the expansion of this project, in which more experiments contemplating other Physics contents will be added to the manual, and its assessment will be expanded to further schools and teachers.