at a glance

Presented by the  Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, the study Ciência, Tecnologia, Meio Ambiente e o ensino de Física: Uma experiência de sala de aula - Science, technology, the environment and the teaching of Physics: a classroom-based experience, by Eros dos Santos Ramos, Deise Miranda Vianna e Simone Pinheiro Pinto presents  an application of part of teaching materials produced by the PROENFIS-UFRJ group, called Electromagnetic Levitation, adapted to the target group's needs, and to the structural conditions of the classroom environment in question.

The work was conducted in a night-shift public school in Marechal Hermes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with students from the last year of Secondary Education. Topics such as magnetic fields, distance interaction, Faraday's Law and Lenz's Law were introduced.

There was a good degree of interaction between students in the proposed debates, which suggests that discussions of problem-situations can contribute to the understanding of scientific and technological concepts and enable students to adopt a critical stance to themes involving science, technology and the environment.