C. I. Massara

Physics Education in Science Training of Primary School Teachers

Summary Our experience in physics training of primary school teachers is briefly presented together with a project we prepared for the teaching of science in primary school. We suggest for training teachers a practicum‐based strategy which requires that they initially carry out experimental activities designed for their pupils and express their ideas and needs. Usually they meet difficulties similar to those revealed by children and ask to explore in more detail the topics tackled in the laboratory activity. The aim of the proposed approach is to help teachers understand basic physics concepts and realise the importance of taking into account the pupils’ conceptions in the teaching process.

Knowledge of air: A study of children aged between 6 and 8 years

The research presented here was carried out jointly by physicists and psychologists with the purpose of verifying whether participation in physical experiments together with social interaction (with adults and school‐mates) can favour childrens development of causal knowledge and their understanding of a physically complex problem. Children aged between 6 and 8 years were involved in a study of air and its properties. Tests show that exposing children of this age to a sequence of appropriate experiments which are carried out together with their class‐mates, leads them to give up pre‐causal explanations and to resort to physical ones.

Computer Simulation and Laboratory Work in the Teaching of Mechanics

By analysing the measures of student success in learning the fundamentals of physics in conjunction with the research reported in the literature one can conclude that it is difficult or undergraduates as well as high-school students to gain a reasonable understanding of elementary mechanics. Considerable effort has been devoted to identifying those factors which might prevent mechanics being successfully learnt and also to developing instructional methods which could improve its teaching (Champagne et al. 1984, Hewson 1985, McDermott 1983, Saltiel and Malgrange 1980, Whitaker 1983, White 1983). Starting from these research results and drawing from their own experience (Borghi et al. 1984, 1985), they arrived at the following conclusions. A strategy based on experimental activity, performed by the students themselves, together with a proper use of computer simulations, could well improve the learning of mechanics and enhance the interest in, and understanding of, topics which are difficult to treat in a traditional way. The authors describe the strategy they have designed to help high school students to learn mechanics and report how they have applied this strategy to their particular topic of projectile motion.

Computers in physics education: An example dealing with collision phenomena

This paper describes an interactive graphics package for teaching and learning collision phenomena which includes analysis of one‐dimensional elastic collisions, two‐dimensional elastic collisions, and inelastic collisions. The package is intended as a support for a traditional course for first‐year physics students.

Integrated computer simulations and the physics laboratory: a unit dealing with wave propagation

Abstract The work we present is part of a national project aimed at introducing the study of computer science in Italian schools and at favouring its use in the study of different curricular disciplines. Our research, dealing with the teaching of Physics, has resulted in a unit based on a close link between experiments and computer simulations. The topic we have chosen is wave propagation. We propose a simple model to illustrate how wave propagation originates and a computer based strategy to introduce the subject in high school.

Logo programming and experiments to study motion in primary school

Abstract A research aimed at understanding childrens ideas on motion and at designing a teaching strategy to introduce the concept of average velocity in primary school is presented.

Understanding average speed: a study on students aged 11 to 12 years

This article presents research aimed at designing a strategy to help students aged 11 to 12 years understand the concept of speed. In our approach the work of students is based on experimental activities integrated with Logo programming.

Elastic waves in a medium: An interactive graphics package

Abstract An interactive graphics package dealing with propagation of elastic waves is presented. It can be used to teach the fundamentals of mechanics at undergraduate level. The goal of the package is to provide a sound understanding of both the phenomenology of wave propagation in an elastic medium and its mathematical description.

A project on the teaching of mathematics and science in the first two grades of primary school

The project which is described is the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration between university lecturers (mathematicians, physicists and biologists) and primary school teachers designed to prepare a comprehensive plan for the teaching of science in the first two grades of the Italian primary school. The project, tested practically for the past three years in over 20 classes, consists of nine units for experimental work and seeks to guide children: to acquire mathematical concepts with a plurality of approaches, often by means of amusing games; to describe objects in terms of properties, to notice the morphology of animals and plants with particular attention to morphologic variability, fundamental to evolution; and to observe objects and organisms in order to identify similarities and differences