Expansão do universo e a curvatura do espaço-tempo: experimento de baixo custo para o ensino médio

Abstract

Astronomy is an important area of science that connects to various other fields of knowledge and has contributed to the development of many technologies. In high school, astronomy topics are embedded within the physics curriculum and are often underexplored, partly due to time constraints in classes, lack of adequate teacher training, teaching materials, and other factors. However, astronomy is an interdisciplinary discipline that intersects with several other subjects, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, history, biology, and literature. Therefore, it is an important discipline not only for its content, which has aided in the understanding of the universe, but also for its interdisciplinary nature, providing students with an integrated view of knowledge. Based on this, this work seeks to contribute ideas for teaching astronomy in high school through low-cost experiments, grounded in Ausubel's theory of meaningful learning. In this case, two low-cost experiments were developed, one on the expansion of the universe and the other on the curvature of space-time. They were applied in a high school class. To assess the impact of the experiments on students' interest in the subject, a questionnaire was administered. One of the results showed that the teaching strategy using low-cost experiments proved to be quite effective. Additionally, it was found that students have interest and curiosity about the topic of astronomy.