Modelos mentais e representações utilizadas por estudantes do ensino médio para explicar ondas.

Title: Mental models and representation used for students of the high school to explain waves. Abstract: In this article, we show the results of a qualitative exploratory researching whose objective was identify and investigate occurrence of representation and mental models (Johnson-Laird, 1983), used for students in the second grade of the high school when asked them to explain, according their perceptions, the production and propagation of waves. The results demonstrate use built analogical representation or their daily perceptions. Include meaning influenced to the ambient and relation with it observed in the answers and illustrations elaborate to the students to explain the waves known by them.