Teaching physics by means of cartoons: a qualitative study in secondary education

Abstract

One of the characteristics of our times is the powerful socio-cultural influence of television. Formal education seems to be losing its attraction to youngsters in favour of TV: physics is no exception. We present here the first results of a working proposal aimed at coupling physics teaching with viewing cartoon programs. The study was carried out over two school years with a small number of participating students. It involved the individualized analysis of two cartoon programs by teachers and students with a focus on discriminating between `real' and `impossible' situations, a class discussion of the results, an attempt to give a physical explanation for what was observed, an in-depth debate about some of the previously identified phenomena, and a final interview with the students and their parents. Using TV cartoons was a clear incentive to the students and our results encourage us to develop the notion of TV `literacy' further.