Abstract:

After the research in the last decades, we are back at the knowledge that students at schools must do, what they want, at least sometimes. Within a formal physics education, students should not only be active in gaining knowledge but should also do physics. Not only should they learn information – facts and procedures, but also use the facts and procedures – use their knowledge in doing their own research. In this contribution, we bring some theoretical background and experience in implementing an invention project to physics education at the age of 12 and an experiment planned by the student himself at the age of 17. Our theoretical background is grounded mainly on the work of The Learning Science movement and experience is based on 6 years of teaching at the lower secondary school and experience within the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. We use these strategies and principles, also in the pre-service teachers' preparation and foster them by the use of a complex software environment for school science laboratory, sensors of physical quantities, interfaces and textbooks. The strategy of curriculum transformation towards implementing evidence-based activities developing competencies of 21 Century, based on the principles of The Learning Science is an up-to-date challenge for physics education evolving.

Keywords:

Physics education, open inquiry, The Learning Science, invention project.