What Do Students Misunderstand about Galileo's Experiment at the Leaning Tower of Pisa?

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Yun-Ju Chiu
e-mail: yjchiu@mail.cgu.edu.tw
General Education Center
Chang Gung University
Tao-Yuan, Taiwan

Abstract

The famous experiment at the Leaning Tower of Pisa has known in the mind of most people whether Galileo ever performed it or not. I asked students what two objects Galileo dropped from the edge of the tower and was surprised to discover that most of them considered them to be metal ball and cotton. Even some students figured that the metal ball and cotton fell from the top of the tower down to the ground at the same time. This study is based on classroom observation, written tests and interviews. The subjects are high school students, college students majoring in engineering, and some science teachers.

It is a common misconception for most students that heavier objects fall more quickly than lighter ones. It could be used to emphasize that Galileo rebutted Aristotle but ignore discussing what the related physics was. Textbooks usually illustrate that the different weights will fall together by using the examples of a coin and a feather in a vacuum and the experiment astronauts performed on the moon. As we know, the two experiments are real but not done by Galileo. The reason why students believe the two objects dropped were metal ball and cotton is perhaps they confuse these two real experiments with the legendary one Galileo performed. Students usually forget to think about that air resistance when they drop cotton or feathers from the top of Pisa's Leaning Tower. Based on these findings, several pedagogical implications can be drawn from this study.

NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) http://www.nsta.org/conferences/2009new/ 時間：March 19-22, 2009 地點： New Orleans, LA (美國 路易斯安那州 紐澳良) 會場地圖及住宿資訊

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