O uso dos conceitos de elemento e substância por estudantes do ensino fundamental: uma perspectiva de análise sociocultural

This paper discusses the use of the concepts of substance and chemical element by eight grade students in a private school in Belo Horizonte. Data comes from classroom episodes, in different moments of a teaching sequence recorded in video, in which we identify an evolution in the use by the students of such concepts. The reason of this research is the difficulty in giving an understandable definition of such concepts in elementary level and the evidence that students do not discriminate them properly, even in high school. In addition, these two concepts give grounds for students’ initiation in the chemical way of talking and thinking. Supported by Vygotsky and Bakhtin we examine the process of conceptual development as mediated construction of meanings. The aims of this paper is to analyze how 8th grade students comes to appropriate of such concepts in a socio-constructivist teaching approach. The analysis reinforces the importance of alternating dialogic and authoritative discourse for the conceptual development of the students