The Physics of Free Fall: Analysing the Opinions of Future Teachers

Alexopoulos Iason 
(University of Patras, Greece)

Abstract: In this paper we analyse the opinions of students and future teachers of our Department about the Physics of Free Fall. The students practice to a free fall laboratory exercise, after having been taught the equivalent theory. The experiment is consisted of an electromagnet that releases a metal sphere, which then performs a free fall motion, and of light gates that record the transit time interval of the metal sphere through a predetermined length.

The students seem to understand the physics of free fall theoretically and algebraically, but when the questions are related to their natural intuition and, especially when they come in contrast to it, then they have a hard time or hesitate answering. In this paper, our purpose is to examine whether these students, who will have to teach, in a few years, the free fall phenomenon in school classes, have fully understood the scientific facts or whether their deeper beliefs originating from the natural intuition are strongly established.

       Key words: free fall, natural intuition, laboratory exercise