CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF DIDACTIC DISTILLATION APPLIANCE: A PROPOSAL AS A GENERATING THEME FOR TEACHING-LEARNING

Abstract

The teaching-learning proposal described in this work intends to mobilize skills and competencies through an experiment that generates practices experienced by students. The operation of didactic columns of ethanol distillation and rectification as a pedagogical tool increases the possibility of learning since the student will perceive the process as analogous to the industrial one using all his sense organs. According to thinkers Piaget, Vygotsky, Morin, Charlot, and Freire, teaching through teamwork, manual operation of equipment, and application in the production environment, aims at a strongly generating action of learning, with the potential to mitigate students' frustration, encompassing beyond the technical training human and social training. The sugar-energy agribusiness is a sector that increasingly needs professionals with specialized training. The construction of the aforementioned didactic deviceis is proposed, then, from tuna cans, copper tubes, pressure cookers, PVC pipes, brass connections, check valves, digital thermometers, analog pressure gauges, water pump, epoxy glue, thermal insulation, silicone hoses, shelf to support columns and accessories, LPG gas stove, among other components. The intention was to build the didactic distillation column as similar as possible to the classic industrial distillers, with their heat exchangers, regenerators, andoirs, in addition to the internal components of the columns such as spillways, dams, and bubblers. The distiller's operating manual, its technological limitations, and examples of activities in a didactic sequence are additional tools that help in the incorporation of skills and competencies inherent to the industrial process.