Greatness volume in basic education: an experience with students of the 3rd year of high school

Abstract

The objective of this article was to analyze how third year high school students from a public school in the city of Cachoeira do Sul/RS solve issues involving the concept of volume. For this, qualitative research principles are adopted, whose data production took place through the answers obtained by students from an online form, composed of three questions that sought to investigate some aspects related to the concept of volume, such as relations between solids, capacity , Archimedes principle, among others. The proposed activity emerged during a Geometry course attended by the first three authors, doctoral students in Science and Mathematics Teaching, in the first half of 2021, under the direction of the fourth author. The activity was developed in classes where the first author is a teacher. The content analysis performed considers records of semiotic representation mobilized by the students who participated in the research. The results showed that, in the first two questions, less than 20% were able to adequately define the concepts proposed in each activity and, in the third question, 36% of the students had adequate knowledge. Although students are completing high school, it was noted that, on average, 57.6% of students did not reach the goal, presenting inadequate knowledge, which points to the relevance of resuming such concepts.