2021/09/18 by M. F. Araujo de Resende, de Resende, M. F. Araujo
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Education and Digital Technologies #FOS: Mathematics #History and Overview (math.HO) #Linguistics and Education Research #Science and Education Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2109.08836
openalex publication_date 2021/09/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The purpose of this paper (which, in many passages, I take the liberty of\nwriting in the first person singular for bringing a personal experience) is to\nshow how teachers of Physics and Mathematics in Basic Education can teach,\nthrough a simple and playful activity, the rules of signs that are related to\nbasic arithmetic operations involving positive and negative numbers. How? By\nusing a ruler, or any other object that can be interpreted as a number line,\nand a flat mirror. By the way, as the justification of why this method works is\nphysical and mathematical, this paper provides a succinct review on the\nformation of images by flat and spherical mirrors since some teachers of\nMathematics may (just as a possibility) not know how it happens. Lastly, given\nthe interdisciplinary nature of this activity, some additional considerations\nare also presented regarding how these teachers can use it to instigate the\nstudents to observe how Physics and Mathematics, together, are part of everyday\nlife for all of us.\n