Construção de capacitores e medida da capacitância

Abstract

The aim of this work is to demonstrate that using experimental classes considerably improves the student's way of learning. Starting from an historical event, which took place almost three hundred years ago and contextualizing it with today's reality, this work brings the perspective that teaching physics can be more successful if one introduces a physical concept in a simple way, contextualizing it with the student's reality. To do so we base our strategy using Ausbel's theory of significant learning, i.e., starting from what the student already knows. For this purpose, our work was implemented taking into account the concept of "storage", with the aim of teaching capacitance and capacitors. Due to the world's pandemic problem, learning has retreated in the sense of direct exchange between students and teachers in schools. With this, face-to-face classes were hampered, keeping students mostly away from experimental practices. Our work, in addition to providing to the students a better understanding of a physical phenomenon, aims to close the gap left during the pandemic period. Using materials of low cost that can be found easily, we show that it is possible to build up strategies to more easily deliver new knowledge to the students. As discussed here, understanding about the physical properties of parallel plate capacitors has helped the students to understand various other phenomena, such as electric field, voltage, among others. On general grounds, the most relevant aspect of an experimental class is to improve student's motivation, making them more creative and participative. To summarize, the direct interaction with the experimental practice and the exchange of information that occurs in everyday life is expected to improve the understanding of non-trivial physical concepts and theories.