Collection of scientific instruments of the physics laboratory of Bento de Abreu State School in Araraquara (SP)

• Grant number: 07/07198-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: May 01, 2008
• End date: July 31, 2010
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Museology
• Principal Investigator: Maria Cristina de Senzi Zancul
• Grantee: Maria Cristina de Senzi Zancul
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil
• City of the host institution: Araraquara

Abstract

This project aims the organization and the study of the collection of scientific instruments of the Physics lab of Bento de Abreu State School - EEBA, in Araraquara, São Paulo. The school, a traditional teaching institution of the city, had its origin in the beginning of the 20th century and it owns a rich collection of materials and devices, manufactured in different times, which can be related to propositions and programs for the teaching of Sciences and Physics, formulated in such moments different from the history of the Brazilian education. Among the instruments, stored in inappropriate places and inaccessible for the community and researchers, we may highlight about 200 old pieces, most of them in good conservation conditions. Another quite significant group is composed by materials manufactured by the Brazilian Foundation for the Development of Teaching of Sciences - FUNBEC - in the 1970s and 1980s. Taking into consideration the meaning of the preservation of this collection, as well as the importance of its popularization, we intend to organize an inventory, with a descriptive file of each instrument, in which we should relate the name of the instrument, its dimensions, the materials used in its construction, the time of production and the use in the Sciences teaching. The project also intends to investigate the methodological approaches that served as basis to the different propositions of experimentation related to the use of the equipment, in different periods of time. At the end, we intend to contribute for the preservation of the school memory and for the research on material school culture, as well as for the studies on the history of Sciences and Physics teaching in Brazil. (AU)