Physics

April 11, 2010 Shawn Cornally

The Gender-Neutral Physics Project:

This series is co-written with a former student of mine, Ms. Helaina Thompson:

1. Where Them Girls At?
2. Tennis Ball Artistry (Kinematics)

Physics Must-See:

Here’s the deal: I suck at remembering things. I know that’s a common joke, but I’m honestly really really bad at it to the point of not handing back quizzes that have been graded for weeks. So, I need to keep a list of must-sees.

Please email me (shawn dot thinkthankthunk at gmail dot com) if you have something to add to this list.

Energy:

• Determine the energy in a bottle rocket
• Pie-chart stories
• Animation of all nuclear explosions
• Troll Physics: Perpetual Motion and Entropy

Vectors:

• Water skiing tensions (pyramids)
• Processing’s PVector class
• Ring stand off. (measure each student’s bicep curl, position around ring stand for nullification)

Acceleration vs. Velocity

• Motorcycle, Car, Jet (via Noschese)
• How fast is this van?
• Poor Gannets

Pendulums and Near-Earth Gravity:

• Pendulum wave (make magnetic pendulum bobs, too)

Kinematics and Projectiles:

• 2,000 Suspended tennis balls (Colossal)
• Video from above, video from the front (modeling style)
• Rendezvous with Rama (Ch 19, Pg 101) – Water as Accelerometer
• y-z plane video, x-y plane video of projectile motion (model building)
• World Record Blob Jump

Force:

• The lone-hoverpuck free-body diagram.
• Hoverpucks and bungee cords
• A Million to One (Flea)

Gravity:

• Awesome Universal Gravity Sandbox
• My crappier sandbox
• Saturn Simulation

Elastics:

• Collapsing Slinky Under Gravity Veritasium

Circular Motion:

• Squirrel Antics
• Hoverpuck broom hockey
• Spinning Water Video (Fake?)

Linear Momentum & Impulse:

• Bridgestone “quiet” basketball
• CrossFit Games Hammer Smash

Angular Momentum:

• C1 “Safe” Motorcylce
• Flippy Counter-Intuitive Top (Veritasium)

Torque:

• 2×4 mobiles (colossal link)

Fluids:

• Volume vs depth vs surface area misconception for pressure

Astronomy:

• Zodiac Viewer
• Dark Matter
• xkcd Gravity Wells
• Apollo 11 (good bit on acceleration near the end)

Table of Posts:

Inquiry Stylee is the name of the game. Here’s a table of contents for my posts on teaching physics. There’s a lot of physics teachers out there blogging, and I’m by no means the most prolific. However, I do want to offer you a look into a room that is hell-bent on being inquiry based, as well as rigorous.

• Manifesto/Introduction
• Logistics
• Designing Easy Inquiries (AHOWTP)
• The Physics Recognition Evaluation (Pre/Post Test)
• First Days of Class
• Why They Invented Second Floors
• Acceleration (Wiimotes)
• First Investigations
• Data Analysis (St. Dev, and Chi-reduced)
• Bottle Rockets
• Castle Siege
• Horse Skeleton (?)
• Phineas & Ferb
• SketchUp
• Gravity
• The Grand Narrative
• Sound
• Constant Velocity Slideshow (Highway)