Teaching Chemistry Through Problem Solving: A Case Study Addressing the Theme of Water Consumption in a 1st Grade High School Class

Abstract

The present work is a case study titled "Seu José's Well" applied to a 1st-grade class of High School in a state public school located in the municipality of Aparecida/PB. It is a qualitative and exploratory research that aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the case study as a proposal for innovative and provocative Chemistry teaching for students, applied during the evaluation phase of the themes: substances, mixtures, and separation of mixtures. To apply the case study, a didactic sequence was developed, organized into four moments, each corresponding to 90 minutes of class time. In this study, the potentialities of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) were explored, addressed from the theme "water consumption." The results showed that exploring the theme in Chemistry Education through the case study led to greater student engagement and motivation for learning chemical concepts. Group work and the students' presentation of their arguments were some of the aspects confirming the potential of teaching Chemistry through the case study.