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…

The teaching and learning of quantum physics has recently become a topic of increasing interest in physics education research. In particular, the study of two-state systems is gaining importance as a means of teaching quantum physics at various educational levels. Meanwhile, a number of approaches have been developed that are also suitable for…

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…

This study contributes to the literature on the role of communities of learners in the professional development of physics teachers. It offers insights from the "Collabora--A Community of Learners on Laboratory Work" program, designed to enhance the use of laboratories in secondary school physics teaching. The program's foundation rested…

The role of virtual simulations in the evolution of primary school students' mental models about electrostatics is investigated by analysing the answers of two groups of 9-10 years old pupils inside instructional sequences that combine two hands-on activities using balloons and jackets with the same activities using PhET simulations: one group…

Connecting physics with the humanities is a fascinating challenge and a complicated cultural task. Yet, it is exactly what the Italian secondary-school graduation exam requires in its oral part. Although it has been criticized by teachers and students, here I provide a list of real school life examples and discuss why this can be a great,…

A qualified teaching method is hard to achieve without traditional classroom lessons. For learning purposes, students need to interact and influence each other, like being part of an osmotic process. They need to learn in a stimulating environment, developing the ability to manage conflicts and to compare opinions. How can this be possible during…

Teaching modern physics in high school is of increasingly importance as it can offer students a more realistic and updated vision of the world, and can provide an opportunity to understand the most recent scientific discoveries. In this context, general relativity (GR) occupies a prominent place, since it is related to astonishing scientific…

Physical principles are involved in almost any aspect of cooking. Here we analyse the specific process of baking pizzas, deriving in simple terms the baking times for two different situations: for a brick oven in a pizzeria and a modern metallic oven at home. Our study is based on fundamental thermodynamic principles relevant to the cooking…

In today's rapidly evolving global economy, it is essential to equip young learners with the necessary skills and knowledge to thrive in the workforce and contribute to economic development. Education is a vital driver of human capital and development in countries, and the effectiveness of any educational system depends heavily on its curriculum.…

We present the development and validation of a construct map addressing introductory quantum mechanics topics at the high school level, as a subset of a larger learning progression on quantum mechanics. Topics include energy quantization, photon absorption and emission, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, atom stability, orbitals, wave function,…

Over the last decade, policy makers have urged universities to innovate their teaching methodologies. Although educational research has shown that active methods lead to improvements in learners' performance more than traditional lectures in small classes, some factors impede active methods from spreading in large size classes. In this paper we…

This empirical study investigates the main features of curricula and contexts that favor or hinder the process of transfer of a teaching-learning sequence (TLS) from the designers' original situation to a host one. The specific research questions addressed were (RQ1) what were the changes made during the process of transfer in the new context?…

Two science teaching workshops for students of the elementary teacher education degree course at the University of Palermo, Italy are discussed, one based on inquiry-based methods and the other on "traditional" teaching methods. A questionnaire aimed to understand the teaching styles preferred by students, their reasons for…

Students' ability to assess their own knowledge is an important skill in science education. However, students often overestimate their actual performances. In such cases, overconfidence bias arises. Previous studies in physics education have shown that overconfidence bias concerns mainly content areas, such as Newtonian mechanics, where…