Students’ use of benchmarks in the process of solving Fermi problems

Meyer, Marlena; Greefrath, Gilbert

Abstract

In this paper, 9 secondary school students aged eleven to twelve years were observed working individually on two Fermi problems to investigate how students use benchmarks in different activities of solving Fermi problems. Specific focus was dedicated to identifying the sub-activities of processing Fermi problems where benchmarks were used. One of the Fermi problems the students worked on required the estimation of lengths, the other the estimation of weights. The data was analysed using qualitative text analysis. The findings indicate students use benchmarks when working on Fermi problems especially to estimate missing quantities and to validate made estimates.