THE USE OF RICH-SUTER DIAGRAMS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING ELECTRONIC CONFIGURATIONS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY
Electronic Configuration, Rich and Suter diagram, Transition Elements.
Elaborating electronic arrangements of atomic and ionic species, as well as knowing the reasons for these configurations, is of fundamental importance to understand and explain some phenomena, as well as to make predictions about the properties of chemical elements. Traditionally, this topic has been addressed in chemistry textbooks using Linus Pauling's electronic distribution diagram. Despite the simplicity and advantages of this diagram for the electron distribution of atoms and ions, this model has some limitations when we try to represent the electronic configurations of about 20% of the chemical elements; in the case of the ions of these elements, the difficulties become even more evident. Considering this problem, the present work carried out a study on the use of the diagrams developed by Rich and Suter (1988) to approach the electronic configurations of chemical species in the context of teaching and learning. To this end, a didactic sequence was planned and applied with the participation of students from the chemistry degree course at the State University of Rio Grande do Norte (UERN), in the municipality of Mossoró-RN. The objective of this work was to analyze the use of these diagrams in the teaching and learning process of electronic configurations of the transition elements, in the context of the aforementioned didactic sequence. The research has a qualitative nature and can be classified as exploratory. For the registration and data collection, a questionnaire, a pedagogical test, field notes and audio capture of discursive interactions were used during the activities of the sequence. The results suggest that the use of Rich and Suter (1988) diagrams linked to the approach of phenomenological and submicroscopic aspects of chemical knowledge in the context of the didactic sequence developed was useful in favoring and expanding students' knowledge regarding the electronic configurations of atoms and ions . Based on the observations made in this work, an academic product was made up of didactic material in the format of a booklet as a suggestion for addressing this theme in the teaching and learning of chemistry