The fourth state of matter? Plasma introduction for pre-university studies

Abstract

Plasma is not a well-known topic in pre-university courses since, in general, it is not included in the syllabus of any science subject. However, plasma is present in nature and in everyday usage devices, being its study appropriate to make the students be more motivated to study physics. This paper presents a short proposal in order to introduce this concept to High-School students of physics. This work begins with an introduction based on a Science-Technology-Society-Environment (STSE) perspective, followed by a theoretical discussion to des-cribe the basic concepts of a plasma. Finally, a simple experiment is described to show that a common fluores-cent lamp contains a plasma. In pursuance of this proposal, we wish to introduce the plasma concept to the stu-dents as well as to promote their interest on the daily life technology and science, allowing the students to con-textualize their physics studies thanks to a first approach to a multidisciplinar subject as the physics of plasma.