The Nobel Prize in the Physics Class: Science, History, and Glamour

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel strategy for teaching physics: using the Nobel Physics Prize as an organizational theme for high school or even first year university physics, bringing together history, social contexts of science, and central themes in modern physics. The idea underlying the strategy is that the glamour and glitter of the Nobel Prize story may attract and motivate high school students to open-up to scientific topics and thus be spurred to pursue science. The two major arguments for the method are that if presented in story form Nobel Prizes naturally incorporate the philosophical and historical aspects of science and therefore enable teaching about science as well as teaching science itself; and that such instruction implements case-based teaching principles, which is how humans naturally think, learn, and remember. Finally, the paper presents the storycase of the Nobel Prize Einstein received for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect as a concrete illustration of classroom implementation.