Câmara de Wilson eletrônica para o auxílio na aprendizagem de física moderna no ensino médio

Abstract

The introduction of the Teaching of Modern and Contemporary Physics (MCP) in the curriculum of the middle school in Brazil evidenced the need to adapt the activities didacticpedagogical in the classroom, in order to reposition the cognitive and interpretative attitude of the student in a society where technology is an integral part of his daily. In this process of adequacy and implementation of this didactic transposition, teachers have been facing some epistemological obstacles and didactic difficulties. This present work had as objective the development of an Educational Instrument to help in the teaching-learning process of MCP, mainly those related to the topics of Structure of Matter, Radioactivity, Cosmic Rays and Elementary Particles. It follows an epistemological obstacle related to the phenomenology associated with the proposed contents, since they refer to structures and physical phenomena that are not easily and directly observable in the student's everyday life. In this sense, this present work proposes the construction of an Electronic Wilson Cloud Chamber, inspired by the Wilson Cloud Chamber and the Langsdorf s Diffusion Chamber, but using easily obtainable materials and that can be built without great difficulties by teacher. There are several tutorials for constructing them, but the main feature of such chambers is the formation of temperature gradient using solid carbon dioxide (dry ice). However, this product is not easily found, besides being highly sublimable, hindering their storage and large loss occurring overnight. The Electronic Chamber proposed here circumvents this problem by introducing the concept of electronic cooling by electronic solid state thermoelectric modules (Peltier effect), facilitating its transport and use in the classroom. The Educational Instrument shall then be presented to the students in a context of Education by Research or Investigative Methodology, given that many authors advocate the practical activity, laboratorial, the observation exercise and the investigative thinking as being valuable tools from didactic point of view.