Stories and Theatre for Teaching Physics at Primary School
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Mommy Comet—A Story for Primary School
2.1. Materials and Methods
“Claudio is a child like many others, perhaps a little chubby, maybe every now and then his tongue stumbles and words do not come out as easily as he would like. Claudio perhaps blushes when in class the teacher asks him to read. Oh, yes. But this afternoon Claudio is also worried more than usual about the upcoming sport competition that will be held the next day at school. [...]
Claudio is going to spend the whole afternoon studying...(Figure 3)
But how?! I mean: would it not be better if he exercised a little bit in jumping? But he is studying. He is browsing without stopping his books, trying to understand what animals are able to do long jumps. After studying, he also begins to work in order to turn a pair of sneakers in a couple of kalofrogillo.(Figure 4)
That’s how Claudio named his invention, which contains the secrets of the jumps of kangaroo, locust, frog and nine-banded armadillo.
[...] “Let Claudio prepare for the first jump!” [...] Claudio’s heart beats so hard that it seems to jump out of his chest; excited and upside down, he does not remember kalofrogillo anymore and gets ready on the starting line, takes a running start, lifts off the ground and (Figure 5.)... pof! While Claudio was jumping, his back was designing a curve in the air, but from the point of departure to the arrival point, only... One meter twenty… short!”.
2.2. Results
3. Under Another Light—A Scientific Theatre Play for Children
3.1. Materials and Methods
- Conduct a 45-minute interview with 54 primary school classes, 26 of whom attended the show in the same year of the research, 13 in the previous year and 18 (control group) did not see the show at all;
- Catalogue nearly 500 drawings, randomly chosen among the thousands sent to us by children;
- Analyze the questionnaires given to the teachers.
3.2. Result
- Have the contents presented during the show clear connections with the didactic program carried out in the class? No 2%, Yes 98%;
- If your previous answer is yes, do you think the show was a useful teaching aid? No 0%, Somewhat 10%, A lot 90%;
- In the first week following the show, how many children spontaneously talked about the show? Nearly all: 43%, more than a half 13%, 5 to 10: 21%, 3 to 5: 6%; 1 to 2: 17%.
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
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Q1-Q1 | Both right | Wrong | Cartoon-like | Displacement | Only one way motion (non back and forth) | |
1st gr. | 27 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 8 | |
5th gr. | 32 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 7 | |
Q3 | Right | Wrong | Ambigous | Impossible | No drawings | No explanations |
1st gr. | 9 | 15 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 5 |
5th gr. | 27 | 9 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Q4 | Right | Wrong | Ambigous | Impossible | No drawings | |
1st gr. | 32 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 | |
5th gr. | 27 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 1 | |
Q5 | (a) (correct) | (b) | (c) | (d) | ||
1st gr. | 3 | 22 | 4 | 4 | ||
5th gr. | 20 | 13 | 3 | 1 |
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Giliberti, M. Stories and Theatre for Teaching Physics at Primary School. Educ. Sci. 2021, 11, 696. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11110696
Giliberti M. Stories and Theatre for Teaching Physics at Primary School. Education Sciences. 2021; 11(11):696. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11110696
Chicago/Turabian StyleGiliberti, Marco. 2021. "Stories and Theatre for Teaching Physics at Primary School" Education Sciences 11, no. 11: 696. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11110696