Guiding Physics Teachers by Following in Galileo’s Footsteps

Many physics learners take the specific mathematical representations they are using as part of their learning and doing physics for granted. The paper addresses this problem by highlighting two goals. The first is to show how a historical investigation from history of science can be transformed into a concrete lesson plan in physics, in a physics teacher education program. The second is to explore the role of mathematical representations in scientific inquiry and discuss the educational affordances of historical case studies in explicating this role in preservice and in-service physics teacher education. The historical artifact that formed the basis of the lesson is a page cataloged as “folio 116v” that contains Galileo’s authentic laboratory notes and calculations written at the time he made his revolutionary discoveries on freely falling objects and projectile motion. To understand and reproduce Galileo’s authentic notes, students must first become explicitly aware that the mathematical tools and representations available in his time were radically different from the tools and representations available to physics learners now. The activity thus sparked discussions and reflections on the meanings and implications of mathematical representations in learning and doing physics.