Programming as a semiotic system to support physicsstudents’ construction of meaning: A pilot study

Programming as a tool to be used for analysing and exploring physics in an educationalsetting offers an unprecedented opportunity for the students to create and explore their ownsemiotic resources. Students may use programming to create and explore different models ofphysical systems. In this study a small group of upper secondary education students participatedin a workshop where they learned to program physics simulations and to create their own modelsto implement using the programming language Python. Results from the study shows thatupper secondary education students are able to create their own models of physical systemsand implement them into code. The implemented models were models of hanging cloth andheat diffusion. Results were obtained by analysing video and audio recordings of the studentsthrough the lens of social semiotics.