Bend it like dark matter!

Image via NASA/ESA Hubble, CC BY 4.0

Dark matter is one of the most intriguing scientific mysteries of our time and offers exciting instructional opportunities for physics education in high schools. In our latest paper, Julia Woithe and I present a fun new approach to teach about dark matter using jelly lenses as an instructional analogy of gravitational lenses. We provide a brief overview of the history of dark matter to contextualise our presentation and discuss the instructional potential as well as limitations of the jelly lens analogy. Give it a read 🤓