Bend it like dark matter!

Abstract

Dark matter is one of the most intriguing scientific mysteries of our time and offers exciting instructional opportunities for physics education in high schools. The topic is likely to engage and motivate students in the classroom and allows addressing open questions of the Standard Model of particle physics. Although the empirical evidence of dark matter links nicely to many standard topics of physics curricula, teachers may find it challenging to introduce the topic in their classrooms. In this article, we present a fun new approach to teach about dark matter using jelly lenses as an instructional analogy of gravitational lenses. We provide a brief overview of the history of dark matter to contextualise our presentation and discuss the instructional potential as well as limitations of the jelly lens analogy.

‘I loved exploring a new dimension of reality’ – a case study of middle-school girls encountering Einsteinian physics in the classroom

“…ROSE researchers found physics applications in space and physics phenomena that scientists cannot yet explain popular among girls and boys aged 15; in fact, these topics showed the smallest gender differences (Jidesjö et al, 2012). An important implication of this observation is that teachers can increase students' interest by bringing EP topics from popular culture such as black holes, gravitational waves, or dark matter into their classrooms (Woithe & Kersting, 2021).…”

Illuminating dark matter: I. A guide for physics teachers

“…One of the most fascinating mysteries in contemporary physics and astronomy involves dark matter, an exotic substance of unknown nature that is believed to be present throughout the Universe [1]. Dark matter makes up about 27% of the total observed mass-energy density, and does not appear to emit, absorb, or reflect any kind of light, which means that it is invisible and therefore can only be detected indirectly through the gravitational attraction that it produces on the objects in its surroundings [2].…”

“…Dark matter occupies a central role in our description of the Universe on a large scale, and is a fundamental ingredient of the Standard Cosmological Model, also known as the Lambda-Cold Dark Matter Model (ΛCDM) 1 [2]. Hence, one of the most pressing problems in contemporary physics is to unravel the true nature of dark matter.…”

“…In section 2, we develop a simple Newtonian model that allows us to reproduce the astronomical observations that suggest the existence of dark matter in galaxies. Finally, we will analyze what it means, from an 1 The Greek letter Λ (lambda) symbolizes a component of the model called cosmological constant, which manifests itself as a form of energy that uniformly fills the entire Universe. Due to the unknown nature of this energy, it is also called dark energy.…”

Making an IMPRESSion: mapping out future directions in modern physics education

“…Today, teachers and educators embrace opportunities to teach modern physics topics in schools: they can choose from a growing number of learning resources, lesson plans, and professional development programmes (e.g. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]). These resources and programmes are often developed by education and public outreach teams of large-scale physics collaborations or institutes that connect cutting-edge physics with curriculum content.…”