A inserção da física moderna no ensino médio aliada à tecnologia do sistema de posicionamento global (GPS)

Abstract

The introduction of Modern Physics in High School (HS) has been highly recommended by researchers of the area of science education and physics teaching. In this paper, we will present the results of a study about the insertion of the Theory of Restricted Relativity in (HS) through the study of the operation of the Global Positioning System (GPS). For that purpose, a didactic planning was structured in 13 (thirteen) classes, which were implemented in Physics classes of the second grade of High School in a school of the municipality of Santa Maria - RS. For the development of the project, a literature review was carried out on the Theory of Relativity in national and international journals from 2005 to 2009. The results of the review were obtained from the study of two distinct but complementary views: length and depth. The first view shows scarcity of articles on Relativity. From the second approach, five sets of works were identified: insertion of relativity in High School; proposal of approaching relativity; use of hypermedia or software for teaching relativity; original; popular science texts. During the implementation of the classes, students worked with activities developed from the perspective of the competences advocated by the official document Supplementary Educational Instructions to the National Curriculum Parameters Secondary Education (PCN+). The results of this work were obtained from the analysis and characterization of the written answers provided by students to the activities. The analysis was realized according to the qualitative method of content analysis proposed by Bardin (1988). The answers to the questions indicated that the skills of modeling and abstraction were incorporated through didactic transposition of the Theory of Restricted Relativity content. Moreover, as a future perspective, we outlined a possible approach to practicing teachers of HS so as to provide continuing education in which these teachers can discuss aspects of didactic planning and of evaluation processes.