An inquiry-based learning path to introduce modern physics in high-school

Although Modern Physics (MP) is a scientific field of increasingly interest, due to its mathematical and conceptual difficulty, it was not generally taught in Italian high-schools. Recently, in order to reduce the gap between school curricula and modern technology, the Ministry of Education promoted the inclusion of MP in Italian secondary schools. MP hot topics produce interest and enthusiasm in learners at all ages, but to address this topic in high school in an effective way it is necessary to translate complex theories and highly-advanced experiments into an understandable language appreciated by students. In this contribution, we discuss an inquiry-driven learning sequence suitable to introduce MP, that we experienced, as pilot study, with a sample of about 40 students attending the last year of the scientific high school “Benedetto Croce” of Palermo in the school year 2015/2016. Our results suggest that an inquiry-based learning path, composed by three phases (frontal lessons + inquiry-based laboratorial activity + cooperative work), can constitute a successfully teaching approach to effectively engage students into an active learning of the MP, provided the teacher has a crucial role in facilitating the knowledge, activating the questioning process and supporting a valuable reasoned exploration.