O princípio de conservação de energia mecânica: as pesquisas da área, sua construção histórica e sua didatização.

Abstract

The objective of this work is to present an overview about the Principle of Conservation of Energy present in works in the area, its historical construction and its teaching process. The starting point for the investigation was the following questions: Why is it that there are still difficulties in learning the concept of energy, decades after its conceptions were mapped and after alternative materials and methodologies were proposed? Do such difficulties also present themselves in your teaching? And what will be the epistemological treatment given by researchers in the area to this Principle of Conservation? For this, the methodology favored 3 dimensions: (1) to survey the articles on the subject, published in Brazil in the last 13 years; (2) understand the main motivations that culminated in the development of the concept of energy and its conservation, in particular that of mechanical energy and; (3) analyze how Mechanical Energy and its Conservation Principle are presented in textbooks, either in their theoretical aspects in the introductions of chapters/sections, or in tasks. For the survey of articles published in Brazil on the subject, periodicals in the area present in the Qualis 2013-2016 triennium were filtered, articles related to the subject were chosen and a careful reading of each was carried out in order to identify how researchers in the area treat the concept in study. For the study concerning the History of the Principle of Conservation of Mechanical Energy, we used the book Energy: historical development of the concept (Lindsay, 1975), taking as a time frame from the Aristotelian discussions to the beginning of the 19th century. For the analysis of textbooks, we adopted two theoretical references: The Theory of Didactic Transposition and the Anthropological Theory of Didactics, both by Chevallard. The first theory supported us in analyzing the distance between the knowledge developed by the scientist (wise knowledge) and the knowledge present in teaching materials (knowledge to teach); the second helped us to analyze the praxeological organization (task, technique, technology and theory) of the textbooks. In the end, this investigation allows us to consider that researchers in the area themselves demonstrate an apparent lack of clarity in published articles related to the topic. As a result, the teaching materials present the concept described in a direct and simple way, without its epistemological aspects and development processes.