Abstract
In recent years, science education is expected to enhance learning activities to increase learners’ interest in daily natural phenomena. However, there are few learning activities where learners individually research a daily natural phenomenon through experiments and observation with easy manufacturing. We therefore practiced a series of learning activities for upper secondary school students to perform falling samara experiments and make samara models in order to cultivate their attitudes toward research and to enhance their interest in the falling samara motion. A samara of Acerbuergeriana and a shuttlecock were used for experimental materials because they are familiar and easily available. By repeating the experiments, students began to perform the experiments in appropriately controlled conditions with awareness of the regularity in the results. They found that the samara with a small wing falls freely at first, and then it starts to rotate and falls slowly with a constant speed. Next, they made their unique models whose falling motions are similar to that of samara with shuttlecocks by trial and error. From the results of these activities, most of students are found to research with reasonable experimental methods and increase their interest in the samara and making their models. In this study, a daily biological sample was used as an experimental material for physics without special equipment and technique. Therefore, this teaching material can be used easily and safely for various situations in science classes such as when biology teachers teach physics, and vice versa.
