Author(s): Nobre, Sandra ; Amado, Nélia ; Carreira, Susana
Date: 2012
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/3268
Origin: Sapientia - Universidade do Algarve
Project/scholarship: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/3599-PPCDT/PTDC%2FCPE-CED%2F101635%2F2008/PT;
In this article we report and discuss a contextual problem solving task that was proposed to a class of 8th grade (13–14-year-old) students. These students had been developing a reasonable experience in the use of the spreadsheet to model relations within contextual problems and chose to use this tool to solve the mentioned problem, engaging in the process of translating relations between variables and combining them in chained models, while working with fractions, multiples and expressions. We intend to highlight the role of the spreadsheet in students’ processes of variable identification and translation of the problem conditions, their numerical approaches to algebraic models and their experimental forms of finding solutions to equations.
