Teaching the Einsteinian gravity paradigm

TL;DR

This paper discusses the Einstein-First Project, which introduces Einsteinian gravity concepts to students aged 11 and above, using models and activities, resulting in improved understanding and attitudes, especially among female students.

Contribution

It presents a novel curriculum approach for teaching Einsteinian gravity to young students, demonstrating its effectiveness and positive impact on student engagement and understanding.

Findings

Students show improved conceptual understanding of Einsteinian gravity.

Female students with initially lower scores catch up to male students.

Students develop a more positive attitude towards physics.

Abstract

While Newtonian gravity is an adequate model for current geophysical exploration, Einsteinian gravity, based on the connection between free fall and warped time, has superseded Newtonian gravity as our best understanding of the universe. Einsteinian gravity is fundamental to GPS navigation and is a useful tool for geodesy. The Einstein-First Project is pioneering new curriculum material that seeks to teach students, from ages 11 upwards, the Einsteinian paradigm for gravity. By developing models, analogies and classroom activity based learning, we have found that students are fascinated and easily cope with concepts that adults, indoctrinated with Euclidean-Newtonian concepts, find difficult and confusing. This paper reviews the Einstein-First program, its methods and results of studies with students. We show that the majority of students demonstrate improved conceptual understanding and improved attitude to physics and that female students who enter the program with lower scores than male students, increase their performance to be level with the male students.