Historical Experiments in Students’ Hands: Unfragmenting Science through Action and History

Abstract

Two students, meeting together with a teacher, redid historical experiments. Unlike conventional instruction where science topics and practices often fragment, they experienced interrelatedness among phenomena, participants’ actions, and history. This study narrates actions that fostered an interrelated view. One action involved opening up historical telephones to examine interior circuitry. Another made sound visible in a transparent air column filled with Styrofoam bits and through Lissajous figures produced by reflecting light off orthogonal nineteenth century tuning forks crafted by Koenig and Kohl. Another involved orienting magnetic compasses to reveal the magnetism of conducting wires, historically investigated by Oersted and Schweigger. Replicating Homberg’s triboluminescent compound elicited students’ reflective awareness of history. These actions bore pedagogical value in recovering some of the interrelatedness inherent in the history and reintroducing the wonder of science phenomena to students today.