Discovering the quantum nature of reality at school.

By a combination of Thermodynamics, Quantum Field Theory and Physical Optics, black body radiation mechanism was completely described in the first thirty years of the last century. Experimental observation of black body radiation is, however, difficult at school, so attention has turned to analogues systems in the study of this radiation. We have proposed a real system that follows the Bose-Einstein statistics, capable of simulating the density of electromagnetic energy, as a function of frequency and temperature, at thermal equilibrium, in a cavity. Through a didactical comparative research, we have shown that the use of such analogous systems, especially in inquiry-based teaching environments, increases the awareness of acquired knowledge and agency, compared to different teaching techniques, encouraging the embodied cognition.