Teaching the atomic structure of matter through stellar spectroscopy

This research proposes to establish the characteristics that a teaching-learning sequence (TLS) must have about Bohr’s atom from stellar spectroscopy in secondary education. First, it presents a review of existing literature and difficulties on the teaching-learning of Bohr’s atomic model, based on the emission and absorption spectra of gases, and also proposes to contextualize its learning in the study of the spectrum of the Sun. Subsequently, it develops an epistemological analysis around 4 thematic axes: electromagnetic radiation, quantum implications of Bohr atomic model, matter-radiation interaction (absorption and emission spectra) and characterization of the sun to define some teaching-learning indicators. It presents the design of a TLS which consists in a sequence of 5 activities focused on the evolution, temperature, structure and spectrum of the sun and it was implemented with students at a high school in Bogotá, Colombia. Finally, it determinate the effectiveness and impact of the TLS through the results analysis of a Pre-test and Post-test. The research findings indicates that there was considerable progress in a 70% in students’ understanding of Bohr’s model using Hydrogen atomic spectrum and that the astronomy education enabled scenarios where physical theories were applied to give a significant overview of science.