Making Scientific Topics Simpler: A Web Site for Learning Chaos

AbstractAs many researchers have pointed out, information and communication technologies can be considered as cognitive amplifiers to support new ways of thinking in educational processes. This paper presents an application devoted to communicate scientific concepts. Linking educational materials based on multimedia technologies, a website, where virtual environments, images, videos, sounds, and music are collected together, introduces young generations to scientific topics such as Chaos theory and the Chua's circuit. It also allows them to experience the beauty, simplicity and creativity of Digital Art, which is the tool that consents to reduce the complexity of scientific topics and to give access to a systematic comprehension of difficult concepts. In the paper, a wholly description of the educational processes that the web site activates is given, together with some empirical results of the experimentation carried on with high school students