Speaker
Description
The timescale of natural phenomena accessible to the scientific enquiry extends over about 40 orders of magnitude (OOM) [1]. Even the range of timescales directly experienced by a single person (though by far smaller) spans about 11 OOM, ranging from a few hundredths of a second of sport timing to several decades of the individual life. On the contrary, the temporal rate of change directly perceivable by a person is limited to few OOM (four to five), where the lower bound of perceivable duration is determined by the time resolution of human perception (few hundredths of a second) and the upper bound is dictated by temporal decay of the working memory [2, 3]. Educational research has paid attention to the relevance of timescale perception in the learning processes [4, 5] and several imaging techniques have been applied to the visualization of physical phenomena whose timescale is outside the range of direct human perception [6-8].
In this work we present a multimedia tutorial allowing learners to interactively explore the timescales of various natural phenomena (ranging from physics, to biology, to geology), based on high-speed and time-lapse video, partly produced by us within an Italian national project for the dissemination of the scientific culture [9]. The web-based tutorial will be freely available on the web site of the project (www.agoralab.unical.it), by the MPTL 26 Conference time.
References
[1] G. ‘t Hooft and S. Vandoren, Time in powers of ten: Natural phenomena and their timescales. World Scientific Publishing, London, 2014.
[2] M.B. Hwes, Human memory: Structures and images. Sage Publications, London, 2007.
[3] A.C. Nobre and M.G. Stokes, Premembering Experience: A Hierarchy of Time-Scales for Proactive Attention, Neuron 104 (2019) 133-146.
[4] J.L. Lemke, The Long and the Short of It: Comments on Multiple Timescales Studies of Human Activity, The Journal of Learning Sciences 10 (2001) 17-26.
[5] L. Gourlay, Creating Time: students, technologies and temporal practices in higher education, E-Learning and Digital Media 11 (2014) 141-153.
[6] M. Vollmer and K.-P. Mollmann, Slow speed-fast motion: time-lapse recordings in physics education, Phys. Educ. 53 (2018) 035019(11pp).
[7] M. Vollmer and K.-P. Mollmann, Time-lapse videos for physics education: specific examples, Phys. Educ. 53 (2018) 035030(11pp).
[8] P. Sapia, A high-speed-video learning path on Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids: from physical laws to cutting-edge applications. Invited talk at: American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) Summer Meeting. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN. July 26-30 2014.
[9] AgoràLAB (2023). “AgoràLAB: Laboratory for the dissemination of scientific and technological culture” is a project funded by the Italian Ministry for University and Research (MUR) under grant n. ACPR20_00229.
| Contribution categories - type | Application (shared experience, activity suggestions) |
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