CHEMISTRY TEACHING AS A DIALETIC UNIT BETWEEN MACROSCOPIC AND SUBMICROSCOPIC LEVELS: beyond the Johnstone’s triangle

• Autor(a) principal: de Souza Silva, Caio
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: da Silva Messeder Neto, Hélio
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Exitus
• Texto Completo: https://portaldeperiodicos.ufopa.edu.br/index.php/revistaexitus/article/view/1607
• topic: Triángulo de Johnstone; Niveles de representación química; Teoría histórico-cultural de la actividad; Johnstone triangle; Levels of chemical representation; Cultural-Historical Activity Theory; Triângulo de Johnstone; Níveis da representação química; Teoria histórico-cultural da atividade

There is an almost hegemonic adoption of professor Alex Johnstone’s ideas on the three levels of representation of chemical knowledge in Chemical Education. Each of those levels—macroscopic, submicroscopic, and symbolic levels—forms what we know as the Johnstone triangle. Tons of research take that conception as a nearly natural foundation, focusing the debate on making the Johnstone triangle more didactic, but they generally take the most needed epistemological aspects of such theoretical enterprise for granted. This work attempted to contribute with a critique of the Johnstone triangle so that the discussion herein promoted may offer a new comprehension of the reality of the chemical knowledge through a materialistic, historical, and dialectic perspective, mainly anchored on the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. Furthermore, we have drawn up principles of the pedagogical practice so that our conception could be as concrete as possible for the Chemical Education field.