Historical experiments in textbooks: implications for chemistry teaching

• Autor(a) principal: Maia de Sousa, Beatriz
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: da Silva Souza, João Paulo, Baldinato, José Otavio
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Caderno Brasileiro de Ensino de Física (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/fisica/article/view/93230
• topic: History of Science; Distortions; Daniell's Battery; Rutherford’s Experiment; História da Ciência; Distorções; Pilha de Daniell; Experimento de Rutherford

History of science acts as an important contributor to teaching towards a better understanding of scientific activity. However, misdescriptions of historical episodes are often found in science textbooks and might do the opposite, conveying distorted views about science and its social dynamics. In this paper we present a list of 24 historical experiments found in high school chemistry textbooks. Relying on current historiographical criteria and making use of primary and secondary sources, our aim was to compare these textbooks’ descriptions with the experiments’ historical originals. We have deepen the cases of Daniell's battery and of Rutherford's gold leaf and found significant differences in the description of these experiments, both in relation to the experimental apparatus and materials used by the scientists as in the execution of the experiments and their relationship with theoretical propositions. Splitting the battery into two semi-cells connected by a salt bridge represents a distortion of Daniell's battery’ historical original. It also deviates from everyday representations of electric batteries and compromises any practical application of the device. In Rutherford's case, we identified that the gold leaf experiment presented in textbooks represents a hybrid of at least four experiments carried out by Rutherford's research group. We also noticed that textbooks deal with the proposition of the atomic model as a result of such experiment, which leads to an inductivist biased distortion of the historical chronology, since Rutherford's theoretical model was proposed before, and some of these experiments were designed, precisely, as verification attempts of this model. We discuss implications of such distortions for the students' understanding and how historical fidelity may help teachers in classroom.