Physics preparation for primary school teachers has received attention only in recent decades. Research on science education provides useful guidelines, often disregarded. Several interrelated research questions must be addressed by field research, namely, (a) which physics subjects to teach in primary school and its relationships with other…

Scientists have always been fascinated by transient far-from-equilibrium systems. Since the (early) 1970s, there have been literature reports on the implementation of didactic experiments as a tool for attracting and stimulating students' and general public interest. In this work, a group of 12 high school students, supported by their chemistry…

General relativity (GR) represents the most recent theory of gravity, on which all modern astrophysics is based, including some of the most astonishing results of physics research. Nevertheless, its study is limited to university courses, while being ignored at high-school level. To introduce GR in high school, one of the approaches that can be…

Improving the interest of high-school students towards chemistry (and science in general) is one of the goals of the Italian Ministry of Education. To this aim, we designed a context-based activity that actively involved students in six different laboratory experiences interconnected by a case study of the murder of Miss Scarlet, from the famous…

The "Saggi di naturali esperienze" was published in 1667 by one of the earliest scientific societies, the Accademia del Cimento. The book was a triumph for the ruling Medici family of Florence, and the commitment of the Accademia to experimentation helped the "Saggi" become the "laboratory manual" of the 18th century.…

In two experiments, participants judged the average numerosity between two sequentially presented dot patterns to perform an approximate arithmetic task. In Experiment 1, the response was given on a 0-20 numerical scale (categorical scaling), and in Experiment 2, the response was given by the production of a dot pattern of the desired numerosity…

We report a laboratory activity, carried out along with high- and secondary-school students, that can be done to increase the interest of the young in scientific studies. Groups of selected students "adopted" experiments at physics research laboratories, under the guidance of university researchers. Subsequently, the students…

The change from the state of supercooling to the solid state of ice is called superfreezing. This process is not uncommon and takes place in domestic freezers. It is also easy to reproduce in the laboratory. (Contains 6 figures.)

The research reported here focuses on links between teachers' comprehension of the underlying physics and their development of educational strategies for classroom work during in-service training. It deals with the teaching of hydrostatics, a topic considered particularly interesting by teachers. Starting from the analysis of simple experiments…