The gravity of imagination

Abstract This paper discusses some experiences carried out in an Italian high school with third year students (around 14 years old). Each phase of the proposed lesson is used to introduce an oral discussion within the class; the images, words and games used are all aimed at stimulating debate among the students. The practical part of the lesson is used to look for the relationship between physical quantities and their values; in this part, measuring instruments play a central role in guiding the students to find the proportionality between geometric parameters (such as area, distance, orientation, etc). The goal will never be to find ‘the right relationship between the physical quantities involved in the experiment’, but rather to find a correct and repeatedly applicable methodology for working and finding results.