Walk like a Physicist; An Example of Authentic Education

You learn walking at the age of one. Hereafter it goes naturally. You do not give it much thought anymore until you are getting on a bit or in case you get an injury of your legs. Then you realize how many times you actually use your limbs and how many ways of walking you practice: normal walking, jogging, running, hopping, race walking, strolling, crutch walking after an accident, and so on. You may start wondering what the differences are between normal walking and running, and why you make a transition from one gait pattern to another in a natural way. The mentioned gait patterns all have in common that they are periodic motions in which one step is set after the other. The center of gravity goes up and down regularly and the arms are moving like a pendulum. Gait analysis deals with a scientific description of human locomotion. Mathematics and physics play an important role in it and video measurement is a frequently used research tool. We have created learning materials for students in upper pre-university education to act like human movement scientists in the classroom. They record video clips of their own ways of walking with a web cam and they use the Coach computer learning environment for measuring on these movies and analyzing the collected data. They determine gait signatures and hip-knee cyclograms of their movements, and they compare their results with those of fellow students. We interpret the authentic nature of our activities as the opportunity for students to work directly with high-quality, real-time data about human gait in much the same way movement scientists do. We lead them to use the same theoretical framework, nomenclature, research methods, and techniques as practicing professionals. In essence, we try to make thei