O uso de tecnologias digitais no ensino de isomeria óptica em compostos orgânicos: uma proposta de sequência didática

Abstract

The focus of this research is the use of a smartphone software for 3D representation and the access to a macromolecules structural data base for the teaching of optical isomerism, a phenomenon related to chemical compounds that exhibits different properties despite of having the same composition. The study of isomerism is made through the analysis of the atomic positions that form these compounds. In the secondary education, this topic is introduced using two dimensions chemical representations and physical molecular models that are helpful but do not provide the best approach to deal with the abstract characteristics of chemistry. Nevertheless, the development of digital technologies has allowed the representation of chemical compounds in an interactive way. This potentiality, however, is not explored as it should yet, considering that there are still a few propositions of suitable educational approaches related to them. The present work aims to fill that gap proposing a teaching-learning sequence in five steps: two of them are performed with the aid of a smartphone App for the construction of 3D molecular representations and a macromolecules structural data base available online. The history of thalidomide was selected as a generating subject for the teaching-learning sequence. Thalidomide was a drug composed by two chemical isomers that caused a tragedy which affected thousands of people spread around the world. The selection of the resources to be used in the teaching-learning sequence was done by means of a bibliographic research.