WHICH PAYS MORE: GASOLINE OR ETHANOL? STRATEGIES FROM RESEARCH IN THE MATHEMATICS CLASSROOM

estratégias a partir da investigação na sala de aula de Matemática

Abstract

In this article we present the report of an experience lived during the Supervised Internship discipline, in particular, during the conduction of a class in which an investigative activity was carried out. Thus, we established the objective of analyzing the strategies adopted by the students during this activity, in which notions of percentage were mobilized to reflect on fuel consumption in automobiles. Therefore, from a theoretical point of view, the report makes use of a research concept that emphasizes the importance of valuing the social role of Mathematics in society. From a methodological point of view, we make use of the legitimacy recognized in research on the practice itself. It is imperative to emphasize that the material, on which the analysis will focus, was produced from access to the records of a class in the internship report and in the field diary of one of the authors. As main results, we highlight: i) the investigative activity seemed to have encouraged students to use the concept of percentage to compare which fuel was economically more advantageous, from an action of collecting real information about the prices charged by gas stations the city in which they resided; ii) through the investigative activity, the students used two different strategies to calculate percentages.