I have been invited to give a 30 minute presentation to high-school kids next week about Free Fall. The physics teacher who is organizing this event also has some nice plans to include a theatrical play, a couple presentations on Galileo's story by the students and an introductory talk by one of his colleague on the same matter.
The request to my side was to prepare something to expand the horizons of students related to the entirely different perspectives on bodies motion in the gravitational field by Aristotle and Galileo.
As a reminder, I have to tell you that this particular event is organized in a Greek high school where ancient Greek philosophers are pictured as authorities in determining the scientific way of thinking. Especially, Aristotle, a "panepistimon", a universal scientist, is claimed to be a holder of all scientific knowledge of his time, something which by today's standards is impossible to happen to our generation of scientists.
So, I am writing this blog piece because I am not sure where to start. I think that there is a great potential for involving students in the discussion by posing a couple of queries to the students, such as:
- do heavy objects fall faster than lighter ones?
- what happens to the speed of falling objects (in terms of the rhythm of change in their position)?
and build upon them.
A second way I could try is to discuss the experiments carried out by Galileo, a groundbreaking method to study nature as opposed to pure scientific reasoning adored by Aristotle. I think this would give rise to questions, but I am more certain it would enlighten the different perspectives those great men had on Free Fall. However, the high-schoolers run experiments in their classes and discover some of the physics laws by themselves, so this might be a better approach.
If you have any suggestions or alternatives, I would be happy to hear them. The seminar is next week, so I have a few days to get prepared. More about it, after the event.
