THE CALCULATIONS OF AREAS AND VOLUMES USING THE METHOD OF ARCHIMEDES: SOME DIDACTIC CONSIDERATIONS

An interdisciplinary approach to education is nowadays considered an important aspect to improve the critical skills of the learners so that they can guess how several aspects of the human knowledge are interconnected. A key aspect of interdisciplinary education is represented by the use of the history of a certain subject within the teaching of the subject itself. This is particularly conspicuous in science education. For, the appropriate and not superficial introduction of historical elements within science education allows the pupils to discover the human aspects of science, the problems behind the creation and development of many concepts, which are often presented only in a formal manner. As a matter of fact, after having grasped that some problems are difficult and after having understood and appreciated the efforts that in the course of history the scientists have carried out to solve such problems, the learners will accept the necessity of a formalization and will not consider such a formalization as a sort of abstract doctrine imposed by the teachers for unspecified reasons. Furthermore, history of science has profound relations with history, mathematics, science, philosophy, physique and technique, so that it is a typical interdisciplinary subject which can be exploited in an educative context.