Ideas for proposing more complex science classes based on the theme of entropy

Abstract

The formation of more critical subjects to act in the contemporary world seems to demand another way of facing the teaching of sciences, either from the point of view of the proposed strategies, from the need to delineate the citizen to be formed or from the language itself of science. These aspects become essential from the point of view of a school scientific education that goes beyond the deterministic classes, based exclusively on textbooks and in the absence of dialogical interactions. For us, facing this training requires considering aspects of complexity as organizing elements of the thought and actions proposed in the school. In this perspective, this article investigates and proposes some elements that allow the work in the classroom from the subject entropy, taking it as the gateway to complexity in high school science classes, especially physics. Methodologically, the research develops from studies of textbooks and aspects of complexity in order to identify the spaces of insertion in the curriculum; proposition of a set of more open and dynamic classes; and analysis of some considerations of the students involved. From the results, it can be observed that the spaces found, although limited, present possibilities of work from subjects related to the environment and thermodynamics, such as the treatment of the pollution with focus on the increase of the entropy and its irreversibility; and the look of thermodynamics about sustainability, consumption, risks and the precautionary principle. It was also possible to note that the students rescued in their speeches, to a lesser or greater degree, the concepts developed in the class proposal and bring up issues that permeate other areas of knowledge, thus breaking with the fragmented teaching and strictly disciplinary.