HOW DO GLASSES WORK? - THE 3 PEDAGOGICAL MOMENTS AND 3D PRINTING AS ALTERNATIVES FOR THE TEACHING OF OPTICS IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION
Science Teaching. Optics. Corrective Lenses. 3 Pedagogical Moments.
Glasses are tools of utmost importance for those who use them. The lenses, present in glasses, are structures that also compose digital cameras, smartphones, and, to a certain extent, our own eyes. The study of human vision and corrective lenses has recently been adopted as a subject of knowledge for the 6th grade of elementary school by the National Common Curricular Base - BNCC, a subject that was previously only taught in high school. Despite being very present in our reality, the understanding of how lenses work, the vision problems that require them, and even the structure of the human eye are still challenging, especially for
children and pre-adolescents who are developing their capacity for abstraction. As a way to contribute to the teaching and learning process of optics in the 6th grade of elementary school, bridging everyday topics for students with what is taught in the classroom, an educational product based on the 3 Pedagogical Moments (3PM) was developed: Initial Problematization, Knowledge Organization, and Application of Knowledge. This product is combined with practices that aim to stimulate empathy, creativity, and the development of a 3D eye model. From the first application and analysis of the results of this product, some modifications were made, and a new educational product was created, taking into consideration factors such as limited resources and structure. This dialogic-problematizing approach has proven to be very interesting for working with the concepts and abstractions necessary to understand how the human eye captures images, what causes vision problems, and how lenses correct them. It stimulates creative and socio-emotional skills of students in a more engaging and concrete way. Through this approach, it was possible to observe a real improvement in students'
perception of how lenses work and how they correct each of the vision problems studied, problems that were previously unknown to the students. Additionally, a significant improvement was also noticed in the understanding of ocular structures and their respective functions in light capture. Finally, in addition to presenting strategies for teaching Optics, this research opens pathways for discussing how objects of knowledge with a higher degree of complexity are received by 6th-grade students and teachers.