An industrial educational laboratory at Ducati Foundation: narrative approaches to mechanics based upon continuum physics

This is a description of the conceptual foundations used for designing a novel learning environment for mechanics implemented as an Industrial Educational Laboratory – called Fisica in Moto (FiM) – at the Ducati Foundation in Bologna. This paper describes the motivation for and design of the conceptual approach to mechanics used in the lab – as such, the paper is theoretical in nature. The goal of FiM is to provide an approach to the teaching of mechanics based upon imaginative structures found in continuum physics suitable to engineering and science. We show how continuum physics creates models of mechanical phenomena by using momentum and angular momentum as primitive quantities. We analyse this approach in terms of cognitive linguistic concepts such as conceptual metaphor and narrative framing of macroscopic physical phenomena. The model discussed here has been used in the didactical design of the actual lab and raises questions for an investigation of student learning of mechanics in a narrative setting.