O uso de experimentos de baixo custo como instrumento para o ensino de mecânica no ensino fundamental

Abstract

The present work had the purpose to investigate the effectiveness of the use of experiments of low cost for the teaching of mechanics in elementary school. Physics in general is not popular with students. Many have difficulties at times in understanding theories and most often in understanding calculations. As an alternative to traditional teaching, this work proposes the use of the methodology of experimental physics together with the theory of constructivism, based on the genetic epistemology of Jean Piaget. In order to accomplish the objective of this work, a first questionnaire was applied to students of the ninth grade, who already had traditional mechanics classes, to investigate the way they see physics, how they would like to learn this discipline and evaluate their level in some mechanics topics. Three experiments were chosen to work on this research, "URM", "The coin that falls in the cup" and "Jet car", which deal respectively with the uniform rectilinear movement, Newton's first law and Newton's third law. A second questionnaire was carried out, after the students had participated in the practical classes, in order to make a comparison with the results obtained with the first one. In the end, the results showed that the use of low cost experiments was effective for the teaching of mechanics in elementary school.