Conceptual bridges: a didactic sequence for teaching Electromagnetism in High School as a proposal to introduce Modern Physics

Abstract

In the research field of physics teaching there are a wide literature regarding the possibilities and obstacles to include topics of XXth Century physics (and beyond) in brazilian High School. However, these researches are disperse, generally sustaining just their own approach and, sometimes, proposing only specific approaches.Thus, the literature indicates that we seem far from having modern and contemporaneous physics (MCP) as a meaningful part of the curricula. The present work deals with the theoretical bases of learning using the Conceptual Field Theory of Vergnaud, as a means do sustain, in a systemic way, the possibility that historical and philosophical elements of Science (and of physics) can begin to play a structrual role in planning a course or in the curriculum, instead of working just as a context for teaching disciplines, thus giving meaning to more advanced areas of physics. As a concrete example of these ideas, we presesnt an experimental instructional product (didactic sequence) using the teaching of Electromagnetism by means of Maxwell’s equations from a historical and phenomenological approach. We found, after the application of the didactic sequence, that one of the major problems in addressing MCP comes
from the absence of a unified narrative, which does not bypass the metaphysical, ontological and epistemological conflicts of the field. We thus criticize the traditional curriculum for, in general, segment the various fields of physics and, thus, make it structurally more difficult whichever pedagogical trial to teach topics that were originally developed by the unification or superation of one worldview.