Virtual and real experiments: a proposal to teach electricity in High School

Abstract

We report on the elaboration and application of a guide of activities for High School teachers consisting of strategies to teach topics in electricity using real and virtual laboratories. We tested four different strategies with students in the final year of high school to figure out which would be more effective to teach about electric circuits and Ohm's law. Each strategy was characterized by a specific sequence of approaches, such as lectures, computer simulations or experiments, to present the subject. Our results indicate that the experimental approach, virtual or real, has a significant advantage over lectures, reinforcing the importance of using experimental activities in the classroom.

Keywords:
Physics education; Computer simulations; Real experiments; Electricity