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The Resolution number 3 of the Câmara de Educação Básica (CEB)/Conselho Nacional de Educação (CNE), published in 1998, June 26 (BRASIL, 1998), which established the National Curriculum Guidelines for High School Education, emphasizes the interdisciplinarity, in its 8th Article. However, almost fourteen years later, the reality in most of our schools is the adoption of a merely disciplinary methodology, vis-à-vis the difficulty related to educational planning activities of this kind. In this paper, we present a proposal of an interdisciplinary experimental activity that addresses the concept of surface tension, connecting physicists and chemists. The idea is that students determine the alcohol content of "cachaça" and discuss the concepts of surface tension forces between equal molecules, similar and different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to discuss the relationship between academic training of Physics teachers in High School and some subjective variables. These variables are related to the concepts of Personal Efficacy Beliefs of Physics Teachers and the General Efficacy Beliefs in Physics Teaching, inspired by Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory (2005) and in theorizations by followers (WOOLFOLK; ROY, 1990; RIGGS; ENOCHS, 1990). The data were collected during the years 2006 and 2007 through a closed questions questionnaire applied to 136 teachers from public and private schools in Brazil. For data analysis we used a quantitative methodology, specifically the Kruskal-Wallis test, in an attempt to relate some factors that constitute the above mentioned beliefs and academic training of Physics teachers in High School. The results demonstrate the specific training of Physics teacher as a positive condition for the variables studied. In this sense, the academic training of the Physics teacher is highlighted as an important factor in offering a motivating teaching environment. This is a great challenge in our country, where we have a large deficit of graduates in this discipline (GOBARA; GARCIA, 2007). In parallel to the offer of appropriate training for Physics teachers, it is necessary to focus on providing conditions and incentives for these professionals to stay in the profession, especially in public schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work we present an analysis on the types of question from the first ten tests of the Brazilian Olympics of Astronomy and Astronautics (OBA). This paper examines the formulation of unique answer questions in the Astronomy issues, trying to point out elements for the elaboration of questions based on the rationalization of the answers, i.e. the linking of knowledge and not the simple placement of data to be substituted in previously memorized equations. The questions were classified according to closed problems or unique answer questions criteria, which are the basic skills necessary for students to use the time to resolve them. The ways to get the right result, the questions were classified as: direct knowledge (type 1), calculation (type 2), reasoning and knowledge (type 3), understanding (type 4) and questions of Science technology and society (type 5). It is observed through the editions of OBA that the types of questions tend to appear in all level tests. In each level the type 3 and type 4 questions, claims the same percentage, however, there is a percentage reduction on type 1. The number of questions that use the simple memorization of responses in High School has decreased over time as well. For example, in the I OBA questions of simple memorization there was a 32.4% and 53.3% in II OBA, but in the test of the IX OBA the percentage was 10% and there is still a reduction of 2.9% from the IX to the X OBA. The classification and the detailed of the results are presented showing that the questions of OBA, wherever possible, have converged to more questions of the 3 and 4 types and less on questions of type 1. In the initial series of tests, the percentage of simple memorization questions, or type 1 decreased from 77.8% in VII OBA to 35.7% in the X OBA. The largest difference in percentage occurred in the 5th to 8th series (eight years scheme) or 6th to 9th series (9 years scheme) of Elementary School, where the percentage reduced from 35.7% to 5.6%, since the VII to the X OBA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following paper presents a study about the student familiarity with analogue situations. In order to do this, it was determined to what extent analogue situations presented to students in teaching activities can be considered familiar as well as their justifications given to evaluate the familiarity. Then, firstly were used some questionnaires that were applied to 112 second and third grade students of four High Schools in Candelária, Nova Palma and Santa Maria in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. After that, some individual interviews with a sample of 06 students from one of the schools involved in the study was done. The answer analysis showed that: a) the students considered familiar just the situations effectively lived; b) some students created new analogies, comparing them to the ones already presented, just changing from student to student the analogy elaborated; c) the analogues that seem appropriated to scientists and teachers sometimes were not presented in the same way to the students, once they rejected them; d) the need for justifying the analogues familiarity enabled the students to explore their personal experiences in order to find out other analogues that could justify the first ones; e) the justifications to the familiarity came from different foundations while some students recurred to lived situations and/or professional experiences, others appeal to the knowledge classified in the school contents; f) the students showed scientific knowledge and information which were learned in and out of the school as well as they used these knowledge and informations to produce their answers; g) the analogues came from a conceptual topic of a specific scientific domain, always face the risk of being little familiar; h) in some regions, some analogue situations showed not familiar to students and familiar to others; i) the socio-cultural aspects from the region where the students live tend to condition the knowledge they use to demonstrate upon the analogues. Finally, it is suggested that teachers verify which analogues should be used in a given context. Besides that, it is advisable, during the analogy teaching, to give preference to analogues present in the students everyday life or suggested by them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]