Fontes primárias da história do vácuo e da pressão atmosférica na sala de aula: cartas e jornais históricos em articulação com o livro-texto do ensino médio

Abstract

The use of the History and the Philosophy of Science (HPS) for the teaching of science and scientific subjects has been advocated in recent decades. It has been pointed out that the History of Science could make for a deeper learning of scientific concepts, since it would promote a contact with the problems which that knowledge has set out to solve. Furthermore, historical episodes would serve to put the discussions about the nature of scientific knowledge into context. With a view to explore those potentialities, the literature in the field has sought to identify the challenges and obstacles for the didactic transposition of subjects from the History of Science. Amongst many aspects, the deficiencies in the training of teachers, so that they can work with the insertion of HPS in the classroom have been highlighted. Another aspect that has been mentioned to be a challenge has to do with the didactic transposition of the Primary Sources, that is, of the original texts on the History of Science. The Primary Sources have significant potentialities: making a connection possible between scientists and concepts, showing the difficulties faced during scientific endeavors, perceiving the role of mistakes as obstacles to be surpassed, not as defeat, etc. On the other hand, there has been little exploration of these concepts in an educational context, due to their own peculiarities. The original texts are often hard to understand and their interpretation demands knowledge of the historical and scientific context in which they were written, as well as skills pertaining to the conduction of research in the field of the History of Science. With this scenario in mind, the research towards this Professional MSc degree starts from the challenge of elaborating and discussing proposals which could enable the didactical transposition of the Primary Sources. We have worked specifically with Primary Sources on the History of the Vacuum and of the Atmospheric Pressure, because of the insertion of these subjects in the Brazilian High School curriculum, in connection with the didactical textbooks. "Historic Journals" were made up from clippings of the original historical texts, as was a Didactical Unit, which takes the usual textbooks as a basis and contemplates using the Journals and the entire Primary Sources in High School. At last, we have elaborated and implemented a course designed for the preparation of teachers and for being an opportunity for the discussion of the feasibility of putting these kinds of proposal into practice