This paper performs a critical analysis of the analogies pre sented to illustrate the chemical balance topic in high school chemistry textbooks approved by PNLEM 2007. Eight analogies were detected, one of which was repeated. Five analogies are present in a single textbook, while three of the textbooks presented just one analogy. Two textbooks contained no analogies. Four analogies can be handy to understand important microscopic aspects about chemical balance, but evidence cer tain limitations, which this paper discusses. Nevertheless, the other four analogies are very simple and do not consider essential microscopic aspects. Therefore, these analogies can make chemical balance difficult to be learned. However, simple analogies can be used in other ways, such as means for evaluation.
analogies; chemical balance; textbooks