The "other uses of the word", in the upper right hand corner, would all be signed as "area". The discussion of the class would soon reveal the inappropriateness of this sign to convey the concept of a force field. The suggestion would be a new sign, with both hands apart, fingers spread, coming down and together with fingers closing in at the middle.

Field/ area

Central field

It would now be time to introduce a variation of the theme: the gravitational field of the classroom. The pupils were given forcemeters (coil springs with a scale) and a load of some sort, and asked to climb tables with their arms high, and to get close to the floor, on different locations in the room, to see that the reading on the forcemeter for this load was actually the same all over the room (this was done fast and with a bit of laughter, as they supposed that the outcome would be 'no difference'). The blackboard that was a result of this exercise, is depicted in figure 3.