Demonstrar é preciso?! O enigma dos cavalos desvendado pelo método de indução

Abstract

The present research brings an experience report of a minicourse developed by scholarship students of the Programa Institucional de Bolsas de Iniciação à Docência (PIBID) from the Degree Course in Mathematics and Physics (LIMF) of the Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará (UFOPA) entitled "Introdução ao método de indução matemática”. The minicourse had the objective of introducing the method of demonstration by induction based on a contextualized activity called "Enigma dos Cavalos" and, from there, to formalize the method algebraically. With the participation of 12 students from the LIMF course, the minicourse could provide a more holistic view of a demonstration by induction and that also provided the rescue of other mathematical concepts, such as functions and arithmetic progressions.