Modeling in Science: a Case Study in Physics

Model concept is one of the fundamental concepts in philosophy ofscience and epistemology. The physicists do not solve a real problem,but instead they create a model to solve the problem with it. The wordmodeling is so comprehensive and to teach modeling is an example of awhole educational plan. Nevertheless, the students in traditional classesof physics course do not have a clear understanding of the wordmodeling, consequently, do not notice the role of this concept inphysics. The fundamental principles of Newtonian mechanics can beconsidered as a system of regulations which defines the mixture ofmodeling games. The common goal of these games is to developmodels of physical phenomena. This is a preliminary point for a newapproach to physic education in which the students are taught from thebeginning that the name of game is modeling in science. The main ideaof systematic education is of explicit principles of modeling and themethods to make student familiar with a fundamental set of physicalmodels, and exercise of modeling, authentication of model withexperiment, and preparing model for justification of prediction anddescription of physical phenomena. This paper defines the physical,epistemological, historical and educational basis rationale of thisapproach.