A resource environment to learn optical polarization

The applications of optical polarization are countless and they offer a window on the relationship, of great social interest, between science and technology. The main phenomenology of light polarization is simple and well-known: it is suitable to organize interesting experimental activities with common materials and with on-line sensors, giving the opportunity to work at different learning levels. The properties of polarization are suitable to constitute a special conceptual link for the introduction of quantum mechanics into the secondary school curriculum and therefore have a peculiar role from a didactic point of view. In the framework of the Italian national projects “Studiare e Capire in Fisica” (SeCiF) and Cultural Education in Physics (CEP) organized by the seven research units of the universities of Milano-s, Milano-b, Naples, Palermo, Pavia, Turin and Udine, materials have been produced for teachers, studied for a culturally innovative and coherent proposal for physics education. The Udine research unit has produced in this context three environments on the web: the first is on thermal phenomena for primary school level, the second is on physical optics, and the third is on quantum mechanics for secondary school level. The materials offered for physical optics are various in nature: experiments, simulations, measurements with on-line computers, didactic path segments, a deeper analysis and cards for students, documentation of pilot experiments in schools. The main features of the proposal on light polarization are studied to offer polarization as “a cultural buffer” for the conceptual transition from classical to quantum mechanics and, at the same time, can be dealt autonomously with a simple formalism, which uses the vector description of the properties. The possible studies of polarization in different contexts (phenomenological-descriptive, undulatory, quantistic) makes it a very important topic for a conceptual synthesis.