In this article, we discuss the content selection and organization of visits to physics research laboratories. We use the visits organized for high school students at the Pelletron Laboratory, a particle accelerator from the Instituto de Física da Universidade de São Paulo, as an example for this work. We identify elements that can guide the development of high school activities based on visits to research laboratories. We discuss the potential of these visits for discussions on the relations among Science-Technology-Society and the importance of the establishment of constraints with the high school contents
particle accelerator; physics teaching; thematic approach; STS
