Orizzonti senza confini per l’insegnamento della fisica: Una chiave interdisciplinare per le cinque macchine semplici

Abstract

It is well known that one of the essential functions of education, both in school and at university, is to provide the intellectual tools for a better understanding of society in all its dimensions. In this regard, all disciplines, whether they refer to “human sciences” or to “exact sciences”, can validly contribute to the training process. In particular, it is increasingly believed today that the history of science and technology can provide an important contribution to the teaching of physics, for many reasons. Firstly, because the historical approach helps to understand the processes of evolution of scientific knowledge, the formation of modern rationality and, more generally, the contexts in which societies have evolved. However, the current contents of scientific teachings are characterized by a very modest attention to these aspects and the topics are often proposed as already perfectly constructed and finished, that is, neglecting, if not in many times erasing, the historical processes altogether. Based on these arguments, this work will address the issue of simple machines following a historical approach as a motivating element for students and as a facilitator of learning. In particular, the process we wish to experiment will use the topic known as the five simple machines to test a multifaceted approach, in a 'historic', 'linguistic-literary' and ‘didactic-applicative’ key, which becomes an innovative learning-functional teaching approach.