LCan physics be fun? Certain! Who knows how to pop a balloon inside another without the outside breaking? With HOP, the educational innovation project for lower secondary students, promoted by CERN, the Agnelli Foundation and from the INFN, you will learn to do it, as well as you will learn how to build a ball accelerator.
A group of teachers during the training of HOP, the innovative teaching project on STEM promoted by Cern, the Agnelli Foundation and the INFN.
HOP (Hands-On-Physics) It is based on the Inquiry based learning methodwhere we learn through investigation, with experiments to be done in class. There doesn’t need to be a laboratory (not all schools have one), because everything necessary is contained in an educational and experimental kit designed by Cern.
The kit contains four teaching units – mainly in the field of physics– and for each there are different activities. The first, the Mystery Box, explains the scientific experimental method. The second, on pressure, is dedicated to the concepts of density, pressure and vacuum, and to the phenomenon of buoyancy; the third is on light and its interaction with matter; the fourth is on electric charge.
The pillars of HOP: kit and training
But the kit alone is not enough. The other pillar of HOP (which has the economic support of Intesa Sanpaolo and Stellantis Foundation) is the teacher training. The first phase will take place between November and December, and will involve around 700 teachers for a day, in person, in 16 INFN locations. The courses will continue in 2024 and 2024, with the aim of involving around 2000 teachers in total (who will receive training credits recognized by the Ministry). It should be noted that all activities, for teachers, schools and families, are free.
“There’s nothing more exciting than learning something new every day,” he says Fabiola Gianotti, director of Cern. «The HOP project offers students the extraordinary opportunity to learn physics in a simple, fun and fascinating wayusing the same method as scientists in their research.”
He adds Andrea Gavosto, director of the Agnelli Foundation: «We are all aware of the difficulties and fatigue that Italian students often encounter in learning mathematics and science. International research and our experience suggest one more direct, exploratory methodology, which starts from investigation and experimentationso that it increases interest and decreases the anxiety that the study of scientific subjects often generates”
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