Studying chaotic systems at all levels of physics education can highly motivate students to learn physics. In this paper two simple systems, the Duffing oscillator and compass needle motion, are presented, which were used in a high school and in a university setting for teaching the basic ideas of chaotic motion. Studying both systems can begin with their simple mechanical models, which connect the mathematical description to tangible reality for the students. To surmount the mathematical difficulties of the theoretical treatment of the models, freeware software, the Dynamics Solver (DS), was applied. It will be shown how DS can facilitate students’ first steps toward chaotic systems both at college and high school levels. Downloadable materials in ZIP format, related to this paper, can be found in our web page ( http://csodafizika.hu/ds_girepmptl ).

Analógiák a napelemek tanításában………………………………………..…4Napelemek a fizikaérettségin …………………………………………………………….4 Napelemek-történeti áttekintés …………………………………………………………...6 Organikus napelem-cella felépítése……………………………………………………….7 Középiskolai projektek……………………………………………………………………9 1.Elektron-ciklusok egységes tagolása napenergia-átalakító rendszerekben...11

With secondary school students at the age of 17-20 years old, we described compass motion in uniform-immobile, uniform rotating and their superposed magnetic fields. As the students have already known the kinematics, dynamics and energy analysis of a simple pendulum in harmonic case, we tried to find analogies between pendulum and compass. Using Dynamic Solver freeware software and two representation types, phase-plane and stroboscopic projection, we simulated and analysed compass motions in more and more complex cases. Finally, we searched chaotic attractors, the sign of chaotic motion, on stroboscopic projections. A new type of representation, a video where every picture is a stroboscopic projection, helped to understand our results. This study was funded by the Content Pedagogy Research Program of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.