Teaching Coulomb's Law through the interaction of three charged particles

The study of Coulomb's law was developed in the classroom with 23 students of the 3rd year of high school in a class in São Cristóvão, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The work begins with the theoretical discussion based on the emphasis of Coulomb's law, going through the historical factor and mathematical tools characteristic of the law for later virtual experimental activity, using the computational resource of the WOLFRAM project for the treatment of the interaction of three charged point particles, with the objective of complementing and consolidating the understanding about a part of electrostatics. The students individually developed the experiment and through the data, we raised an analysis and discussion of the graphs obtained, seeking to emphasize the relationship between theory and practice for a better understanding of the teaching-learning process of physics. By using programs such as Wolfram and for this work on charged particles, we developed in the students the ability to assimilate the content and experimental notion, even if virtually, facilitating the work in the teaching-learning process.