Learning optics from the history

Abstract: A number of studies have described the benefits of the incorporation of History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) for learning, and teaching science as a process, for promoting conceptual changes, and a deeper understanding of scientific ideas. Physical Optics is a topic of difficult comprehension, and this fact was also observed at thePontificia Universidad Católica Argentina when students received traditional instruction. This article describes a project to improve the teaching of interference, and diffraction of light within a historical context. Care was taken in developing the line of historical thought, and the study of the hypotheses of the nature of light in proper chronological order. In order to assess the outcome of this methodology, surveys on the subjects of interference, and diffraction of light were conductedduring three consecutive years. During the first year a textbooks based teaching without historical insight was imparted; later HPS based methods were introduced. The results show that students show more enthusiasm in lectures where the didactics uses HPS materials, and this methodology contributed to improve the students´ performance, increasing the percentage of correct answers in the exams.