Spacetime Globe: A Teaching Proposal for the Didactic of Special Relativity

Abstract

Special Relativity acquaints students with Modern Physics, the signifi-cance of which is growing within Italian high schools. To face the difficulties both teachers and students encounter, different solutions have been developed. We present an experimentation regarding the teaching of Special Relativity we carried out in last year classes of High Schools oriented to scientific studies. In this project a mechan-ical instrument was used which allows to explain and show Lorentz transformations, exploring by hand the effects of a change of reference frame. Teachers and students were able to deal “by eye” with relativistic phenomena.