From practical geometry to the laboratory method: the search for an alternative to Euclid in the history of teaching geometry

Abstract

This paper wants to show how practical geometry, created to give a concrete help to people involved in trade, in land-surveying and even in astronomy, underwent a transformation that underlined its didactical value and turned it first into a way of teaching via problem solving and then into an experimental-intuitive teaching that could be an alternative to the deductive-rational teaching of geometry. This evolution will be highlighted using textbooks that proposed alternative presentations of geometry.