Pneumatic Lighter: a versatile tool to the interdisciplinary teaching

Abstract The pneumatic lighter is a device that allows to produce fire by means of rapid air compression and, when constructed with transparent acrylic tube, it is possible to observe the burning of a small sample of cotton placed in its interior. Because it is a little known instrument and whose operation calls attention we see its use in the classroom as an auxiliary tool in the significant construction of concepts of thermodynamics, both in physics and in the chemistry of the process, so that it can be used as an articulator of interdisciplinary. The many energy conversions observed in the process can also leverage interest in concepts that go beyond those restricted to thermodynamics. In particular, we report how can be made estimates of the energy released in the cotton burning process using a free software for video processing frame by frame, Tracker. We hope that this work will divulge the pneumatic lighter as a teaching tool for Physics and Chemistry, to stimulate the use of simple experiments in the classroom aiming at the significant development of knowledge and to show that the acquisition and processing of data can be shown potentially playful activity of research in classical physics already at the average level of education.