Light pollution – an interesting context for teaching and learning optics

Abstract

Physics as a school subject is in general very unpopular. This fact is especially true for the situation in Austria. PISA results show that motivation, interest and self-efficacy of Austrian highschool students are significantly lower than the OECD average. In addition, a significant gender-gap in disadvantage for girls was shown. In general, one reason for low interest which was identified by previous research is that physics instruction is frequently decontextualized and students can hardly see any relevance of understanding physics for their lives. On the contrary, science and technology play a crucial and increasingly important role in our lives and in our globalized society. At the same time, edutainment focusing on science topics is booming. Interest studies like the ROSE-study may give reasons for this discrepancy: the choice of contexts does often not meet students’ interests. This contribution reports the development of a context-oriented learning environment on light pollution to stimulate learning processes and at the same time interest in introductory optics.