Computer tools to aid the learning and design steps for photovoltaic systems

This paper presents novel simulation tools to assist the lecturers about learning processes on renewable energy sources, considering photovoltaic (PV) systems. The PV behavior, functionality and its interaction with power electronic converters are investigated in the simulation tools. The main PV output characteristics, I (current) versus V (voltage) and P (power) versus V (voltage), were implemented in the tools, in order to aid the users for the design steps. In order to verify the effectiveness of the developed tools the simulation results were compared with Matlab. Finally, a prototype was implemented with the purpose to compare the experimental results with the results from the proposed tools, validating its operational feasibility. © 2011 IEEE.

Greening the campus of a Brazilian university: cultural challenges

Purpose - This study examined the relationship between environmental management practices developed at a campus of a Brazilian university (University of Sao Paulo) and the greening of its organizational culture. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach - This article presents a theoretical background based on the concepts of environmental management, organizational culture and environmental management in higher education institutions. The main framework of this research is the model proposed by Harris and Crane.Findings - The studied university has an environmental management program that is sometimes constrained in the following ways: the university bureaucracy and hierarchy; the main performance indicators for lecturers and professors are based on scientific production and publication, giving them little time for complementary activities; and some units develop their own environmental management practices, but they are not disseminated as best practices for use by other units. Some academic units showcase the proactive actions of professors who incorporate environmental management into their daily activities. The general perception is that the phrase environmental management is almost synonymous with solid waste management.Originality/value - This research details the first Brazilian application of the Harris and Crane model. It contributes an original analysis of environmental management and green organizational culture of a Brazilian university, an organizational type that has seldom been studied to date.

Formação inicial de professores de ciências: reflexões a partir das abordagens das estratégias de ensino e aprendizagem em um curso de licenciatura

We developed a case study aimed to identify and to analyze how the approach to teaching and learning strategies occurs in a science teaching degree course and what are the possible influences of this formation on the pedagogical practice of these educators. The analysis focused on documents, questionnaires and interviews with lecturers and students. There is reduced diversity of strategies in the disciplines of the specific area, with prevalence of expository classes and of laboratory, and the lecturers seem to believe that a good knowledge of specific content is enough for teaching. Despite that pedagogical disciplines do explore diverse practices, many students incorporate the academic view prevailing in the course, repeating the model of their lecturers. We stress the need for initial teacher training to take into account both aspects, the domain of the specific contents and the best ways to mediate them, forming intellectuals able to discuss and to redraw their educative actions in a perspective of transformation of the reality.

A geometria euclidiana na licenciatura em matemática do ponto de vista de professores formadores

Pós-graduação em Educação Matemática - IGCE

Uma descrição semiótica da metáfora no ensino de biologia: asserções sobre a célula animal

The main objective of this survey is describing signly the metaphor learning resource, with focus on biology education. Our teorical reference is the peircean semiotics, because it means solid heritage to code surveys implicated at science education, it led us to do an explanation about the main lines about that reference, addressed to researchers and lecturers interested in those reasonings. In the description yearned, another objectives appear: demonstrate diferences between metaphor/analogy and pragmatic analogy; to list metaphors, from cell representation analysis, and argue about principals diferences and probable cognitive consequences between the metaphor event in the visual representation and speech sentences. Therefore we analysed the animal cell of a high school first grade studying book – biology – cell biology – used by São Paulo and another state students. The findings demonstrate the undeniable importance of the metaphor as a learning tool in the biology education, and new findings about that, such as its limits in the concept elaboration, gnosiologic consequences for receptioning, the search needs for propositions– pictures between concept relations – in the science speech construction, and other results.