Students' understanding of gravity using the rubber sheet analogy: an Italian experience

TL;DR

This study evaluates how effectively a rubber sheet analogy helps Italian high school students understand gravity concepts related to General Relativity through a hands-on activity and questionnaires.

Contribution

It introduces and assesses a novel educational activity using the rubber sheet analogy to improve high school students' understanding of gravity and General Relativity.

Findings

Students showed improved understanding of gravity concepts.

The activity increased engagement and interest.

The analogy clarified complex physics topics.

Abstract

General Relativity (GR) represents the most recent theory of gravity, on which all modern astrophysics is based, including some of the most astonishing results of physics research. Nevertheless, its study is limited to university courses, while being ignored at high school level. To introduceGR in high school one of the approaches that can be used is the so-called rubber sheet analogy, i.e. comparing the space-time to a rubber sheet which deforms under a weight. In this paper we analyze the efficacy of an activity for high school students held at the Department of Mathematics and Physics of Roma Tre University that adopts the rubber sheet analogy to address several topics related to gravity. We present the results of the questionnaires we administered to investigate the understanding of the topics treated to over 150 Italian high school students who participated in this activity.