Dunkle Materie: Lehr-Lern-Module für den Einsatz in der gymnasialen Oberstufe

Observations and findings from gravitational physics and cosmology lead us to the assumption that the matter known to us only makes up just 5% of the total matter of the universe. The remaining 95% are still not understood and legitimize because of that reason the enormous effort of modern astronomical research in order to study this high proportion of unknown matter. A considerable part seems to consist of matter that is invisible to us. The findings on this dark matter are diverse and therefore offer great didactic potential. Nevertheless, only the physics that deals with the known, visible and largely baryonic masses in universe is often taught in schools and also in the teacher trainings at universities. It should and must be a clear aim of physics teaching and physics studies for prospective teachers to convey the previous knowledge about light and dark matter.
The aim of the present work is to show ways and possibilities how the subject matter of dark matter can be properly prepared for pupils. First, it is analyzed how strongly dark matter is represented in current school books and selected curricula. This chapter also includes surveys of pupils and teachers, in which the interest and knowledge related to dark matter are randomly evaluated. Based on the results gained from this, three modules are developed that treat the observations and findings from gravitational physics (module 1), from cosmology (module 2) as well as the open questions and the resulting potential for citical discussions (module 3). In this context, the foundations are made accessible to pupils in a didactically reduced manner by means of analogy experiments, mathematical elementalizations and simulations. The analogy experiments are either real experiments with corresponding evaluation by developed software or experiments in which the observation portion is particularly high.
The present work also offers exercises and additional material for implementation in the lessons. All in all full teaching-learning concepts for teachers and future teachers can be provided in this doctoral thesis. The author has already used these concepts in the classroom so that the individual modules are also evaluated in the course of teaching trials.