The role of peer and teacher mediation in discussions about two original scientific texts in the final year of high school in Brazil is explored in this study. A text by James C. Maxwell, deals with the characterisation of light as an electromagnetic phenomenon, and refers to the continuous manner of the distribution of energy by radiation in…

This paper describes a set of demonstration school experiments where infrared radiation is detected using thermal sensitive foils. The possibility of using standard glass lenses for infrared imaging is discussed in detail. It is shown that with optic components made from glass, infrared radiation up to 2.5 µm of wavelength can be detected. The…

The paper describes a set of physics demonstration experiments where thermal sensitive foils are used for the detection of the two dimensional distribution of temperature. The method is used for the demonstration of thermal conductivity, temperature change in adiabatic processes, distribution of electromagnetic radiation in a microwave oven and…