Use of the Short Wave Radio to prove the ionosphere with students from a public school in Brazil

Knowledge of the characteristics of the ionosphere is largely based on its effects on electromagnetic waves. For the teaching of the atmosphere layers, in Brazil, as public schools have textbooks, pictures and videos, however, a practical experiment is not often performed . To remedy this gap, using low-cost materials, an experiment was carried out, well known for radio amateurs using two receivers, one portable shortwave (5.950 to 6.200 MHz and 7.100 to 7.300 MHz) and the other to FM (88 to 108 MHz), where shortwave radio stations with foreign language broadcasts were randomly tuned to characterize broadcasts from abroad. It was compared with some FM radio broadcasts from neighboring municipalities, previously researched on the internet and it is reckoned that it was not possible to receive these stations. There was a surprise from the students when they heard transmissions in other languages (from other distant countries) and did not listen to FM radio stations relatively close, thus proving the existence and application of the ionosphere during science classes.