Experimental activities and computational simulations: integration for the construction of concepts of thermal energy transfer in High School

Abstract

This essay is the result of a qualitative research that was developed with students from the second year of high school from a private school of Erechim, Rio Grande do Sul. The research investigates the implications on the use of simulations linked to science activities and experiments creating meaningful learning situations about the topic of thermal energy transfer. Exercises, aiming the development of the students’ critical sense in the face of the experiments, were planned based on the experimental activities and the computational simulations. Analyzed data pointed that: a) the students showed, at the semi structured questionnaire of previous knowledge before pedagogical intervention, the lack of some subsumers related to the concepts of thermal energy transfer, since they could not distinguished heat from temperature; The created and proposed material in this practice turned to be potentially significant, because it contributed to modify, enrich and elaborate the subsumers presented in students’ cognitive structures, providing the verification of phenomena which mostly were observed in daily life, as well as the differentiation among the three forms of thermal energy transfer and their concomitant existence; c) the students, in face of the required proposal, showed to be motivated and predisposed to work with the experimental activities and simulations, doing them with enthusiasm and showing interest, favoring the occurrence of meaningful learning; d) the conceptual maps, elaborated and presented at the end of the proposed activities, evidenced changings in students’ subsumers, as well as they pointed that experimental activities combined with computational simulations can be a tool to help the learning of some concepts of thermal energy transfer. At the end of this research, it was available an educational product to help other teachers with their pedagogical practice.