A utilização da história da matemática na construção do conceito do número PI nos livros didáticos da Coleção Praticando Matemática

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the presence of the History of Mathematics in textbooks collection of practicing mathematics, focusing on the number Pi approach this collection. The need to discuss on this topic appeared in front of our perception about the little room in the textbooks of Mathematics given the historical approaches, as this fact may be one of the aspects responsible for the little knowledge of Pi Story of many students from many different levels of education. In order to comprovarmos one of the possible causes of little knowledge of Pi and know what is associated with little familiarity of the students with the history of mathematics, we did a Historical approach Pi number, showing its evolution throughout history, based on authors They are showing the contribution of different people since the emergence of that number. For this work we resort to a literature search of exploratory and used as theoretical contribution articles, theses and books. After searching the history of Pi, we examined the four volumes of the collection Practicing Mathematics (ANDRIN and VASCONCELOS, 2012) realizing how the historical notes are exposed in the development of themes. There was so in some units there is historical approaches and in other cases the notes do not conceptualize the topic under study. Also in relation to the placement of historical texts we can prove that there is a rule that determines whether the notes are presented as introduction at the beginning or end theme as additional information, as in some cases even develop in the middle of the theme. What about the number Pi in the chosen work, there is little room devoted to the subject, as in one of the volumes could not find a page on the history of Pi but did not bring information conceptualizing exactly what we noticed was a bit of biography of a mathematician from past. Another fact that also calls attention to the analyzed collection is that as you advance in volumes, there is a considerable decrease in historical approaches.