This paper examines the issue of learning physics content through real-life contexts and focuses on the context of energy. It firstly examines a variety of meanings of context-based learning and then considers two projects, one from the UK and the other from Australia, which use a context-based learning approach. What is context-based learning? Context-based learning can have several meanings. At its broadest, it means the social and cultural environment in which the student, teacher and institution are situated. This environment reflects, and is partly formed and connected by, communications media. Most of us share our experience of news, television programmes and humour, providing the teacher and learner with a common culture. When overlap of peoples' cultures is comprehensive, empathy and communication are enhanced; when cultural differences are overlooked, communication may break down. A narrower view of context might focus on an application of a physics theory for the purposes of illumination and reinforcement. In this
This article explains a novel way of demonstrating the principle of conservation of energy. This can be difficult to demonstrate in the laboratory, but if students have been convinced of the conservation of momentum, twodimensional collisions on a pool table may be used.
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