Teaching matter and radiation in High School with the aid of interactive simulators

Abstract

The Modern and Contemporary Physics as a subject of knowledge in the high school education level has been defended by many authors. However, despite the technological and scientific advances, only few studies have been done regarding the use of computers and other media in teaching some topics in this area. In this work, which was performed in two High School classes from a public school, we applied a few ways to make use of computers and interactive simulators for a better understanding of some physical phenomena in this area. We conducted our analysis from the Vygotsky’s social-interactive perspective. We explored the topics of Spectroscopy, Radioactivity and Nuclear Physics by using interactive simulations developed by the project Physics Education Technology (PhET) at the University of Colorado. We concluded that the use of this interactive simulators collaborates with the teaching of this topics, enhancing the student's understanding and awakening their interest on the subject.