Comprensión de los estudiantes de la Teoría Especial de la Relatividad y diseño de una visita guiada a un museo de la ciencia

Abstract

The problem which we are tackling in this work emerges from three different concerns: the importance of ‘learning science ‘informally’ as part of the school curriculum, the need for scientific literacy and the importance of the social implications of contemporary science. An exhibition was used in the Kutxaespacio Science Museumin San Sebastian on the centenary of the Spatial Theory of Relativity to design a visit for first year Engineering students and assess the learning which is achieved. The first part of the work presents the design which was produced to build bridges betweenformal teaching and the exhibition visit. The second part analyses the potential of the exhibition and the aforementioned design to influence the student’s knowledge regarding three aspects of the Spatial Theory of Relativity. The results obtained demonstrate that the visit design with activities beforehand and afterwards is effective in terms of increasing students’ understanding and stimulating their ability to argue scientifically.

Keywords

• Informal learning
• Special Relativity
• Visits to Museum.