From the dicey world to the physical laws: dice toy models for bridging microscopic and macroscopic understanding of physical phenomena

Abstract

Abstract We discuss an educational approach to some different physical phenomena that can be explained by means of stochastic toy models, and explored by students with rolling dice. The discussion of the physical principles governing the phenomena, proceeds through a recurrent comparison between the outcomes obtained with the toy models and the results of real experiments. The educational proposal allows students to compare experimental data they obtain to both analytical results and simulations. The effectiveness of our approach was tested both with groups of undergraduate students and with a group of on service teachers.