REFRACTION AND TOTAL INTERNAL REFLECTION OF LIGHT: AN
ENGAGING EXPERIMENT FOR HIGH SCHOOL
The objective of this work was to elaborate and apply a didactic
sequence centered on the direct participation of the student from beginning to
end, as a protagonist in this process. For this purpose, activities involving digital
educational tools and an experiment dealing with refraction and total internal
reflection of light were carried out in order to engage them in the studies. This
experiment tends to make classroom educational practice feasible, proving
Snell's law and promoting meaningful learning. This sequence was performed
with high school students from the 2nd year of a public school in São Paulo, in
the municipality of Itaquaquecetuba, aged between 16 and 18 years. The
application of the proposal of this work with the use of concept maps resulted in
data before and after for analysis of a qualitative learning. With this work, two
main points were observed: the scientific knowledge of these students and the
ability with trigonometry were limited; and student engagement after studying
using the proposal of this didactic sequence. After performing this work,
students became more participative, observers and questioners, having a
different view on the teaching of physics and enabled a less simplistic scientific
knowledge of the studied content. Teaching became motivating and learning
made sense to students