New Electromagnetism Lessons Added

1. Right Hand Rule #2 [Lab Springboard] at Teachers Pay Teachers

Right hand rules in high school physics do not bring me great joy. I cringed when The Physics Teacher ran a photoessay from an instructor who photographed students contorting hands during an exam. (A cursory search for this article was unsuccessful. I hope it was expunged.) 

Nevertheless, 3-D geometry cannot be avoided when studying magnetic fields and forces. In the Ørsted's discovery lab, students develop a right hand rule relating to current and the magnetic field it produces. That was Right Hand Rule #1.

This activity relates current, external magnetic field, and magnetic force. Right Hand Rule #2.

Switch Wars [Design Lab]

Design Challenge: Using only a battery, bulb, wires, and two single pole double throw switches, make a “three-way” switch. A three-way switch involves 2 two-position switches (like common light switches in houses). Either switch can be used to turn a light on or off. Such two-switch systems are often used for lights in stairways, long hallways, or for outdoor structures. Children (of varying ages) sometimes battle each other by stationing themselves at opposite switches; one tries to keep the light on while the other tries to keep it off.

Switch Wars [Design Lab] at Teachers Pay Teachers

Includes

Student document (print-friendly Google Docs file on Google Drive)

Answer key

Logic Gates [Lab + Job]

When I began the patient siege of outfitting my lab at Rio Americano High School (c. 1990), I leveled up on batteries (C- and D-cells), bulbs (various incandescent flashlight "mini bulbs"), connecting wires (alligator clip "jumpers") and switches (single throw, single and double pole ceramic and copper). 

My wish/shopping list came from Paul Robinson's Conceptual Physics: A High School Program by Paul Hewitt 1/e Lab Manual. I had tagged each lab I hoped to do, then assembled a spreadsheet list of the apparatus I would need.

And as was the case with my mechanics apparatus and materials, I began developing other labs for my students to conduct with those materials.

The Fringe of Optics [PhET]

Use PhET's Wave Interference sim to construct the mathematical relation describing interference patterns

The modern study of light began in the late 1600s and early 1700s with Isaac Newton in England and Christiaan Huygens in the Netherlands. Newton theorized that light consisted of particles. Huygens theorized that light consisted of waves. In 1801, Thomas Young offered convincing evidence for the wave model of light when he demonstrated that light could produce an interference pattern. 

A Bundle of Phyz: HARMONIC MOTION

The bundle opens with a PhET-fueled exploration of Hooke's law. "Spring to Another World" utilizes the Masses and Springs simulation.

Then its on to a guided classroom discussion on elastic potential energy which works through a side-by-side compare and contrast with gravitational potential energy. Practice the equation developed in the springboard on a few toy gun number puzzles.

"Springs and Swings" provides a PhET-fueled introduction to simple harmonic motion, while also delving gently into Google Sheets and linearization. This one leverages Masses and Springs: Basics and Pendulum Lab.

A Bundle of Phyz: FLUIDS

When the College Board added fluids to the AP Physics B exam, I felt like I needed to create a new unit from whole cloth. This bundle includes most of what I subsequently produced over the years.

We begin with pressure and its idiosyncrasies, addressed in a springboard (guided classroom discussion) and a job (independent homework). Next we dive into PhET's Density pool in our first sink-or-float lab activity, "Pool Cubes 1 - Density."

Conceptual Physics Alive's telling of fluids begins with "Liquids I," in which he demonstrates principles using Pascal's vases, among other things.

A Bundle of Phyz: ROTATION

The bundle opens with a guided classroom discussion on "A New Kind of Motion": rotation. It's fundamentally different from linear motion.

"A Question of Balance" is a PhET-fueled lab activity that sets and applies the conditions for balance using the Balancing Act sim. It's a nice precursor to an in-class, hands-on balanced torques lab.

"Torque" is a guided classroom discussion that builds toward an equation for torque by examining various factors one at a time.

A Bundle of Phyz: ENERGY

This busy bundle opens with springboards introducing gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy. The Mechanical Universe's episode on "Potential Energy" includes a nice historical perspective via Roger Boscovich. Ranking tasks for potential energy and kinetic energy close out the mechanical energy introductions.

Next up is an exercise in tracking energy transformations. In the Before Times, students drew their own sketches. In remote teaching/distance learning (RT;DL) that became impractical. In class, I followed this lesson with a showing of the classic Honda Cog ad. Two minutes of energy transformations, with some nice unstable equilibrium configurations, to boot. No CGI, and it only required a bit more than 600 attempts to nail it. OK Go's "This Too Shall Pass" video presents even more shining examples.

A Bundle of Phyz: MOMENTUM

The bundle opens with the springboard (guided classroom discussion with presentation) that introduces momentum.

Next we have the "Take a Flying Leap" springboard, an exploration of impulse that ends with me jumping off the historic Victoria Falls Bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The Kinetic Karnival of Jearl Walker then takes us through stories and demonstrations of "Forces & Collisions". Jearl chops through concrete bricks with his bare hands and survives a cinder block being smashed on his chest while sandwiched between two beds of nails.

A Bundle of Phyz: GRAVITY

The bundle opens with The Mechanical Universe's "Kepler's Three Laws" which set the stage for Newton's work on universal gravitation.

"Be Newton for a Day" retraces Newton's fabled derivation of F=GMm/R^2 from geometry, Kepler's Rule, and a few insights of his own.

"The Apple and the Moon" is The Mechanical Universe's telling of how Newton derived and mathematically proved his inverse square law.

"The Laws of Attraction" is a PhET-fueled investigation deeper into the mathematical relationships in universal gravitation.

A Bundle of Phyz: FORCES

The bundle opens with a PhET-fueled simulation lab activity that I used as a precursor to an in-class, hands-on experiment involving carts and motion tracking (not included here).

Next we have an in-class (in-Zoom?) direct instruction activity fleshing out Newton's Second Law via a series of fanciful shopping cart races.

Paul Hewitt offers instruction in Conceptual Physics Alive's "Newton's Second Law".

The bundle is a bit weak in Third Law curriculum. That topic is best taught via hands-on activities. But we do have Hewitt's "Newton's Third Law" and The Mechanical Universe's "Newton's Laws".

Pushing Things Around [PhET]

I like what PhET has done with Forces and Motion: Basics. In the Net Force section, a tug of war can be arranged with various players. If teams are composed symmetrically, neither will win. But there are other ways to bring about a tie. And what happens if one team is winning, the sim is paused, and the teams are recomposed so that the forces are now balanced, and the sim is unpaused?

In the Motion and Acceleration sections, the relationship between force, mass, and acceleration can be observed. And did you make your your mannequin faceplant?

A Bundle of Phyz: MOTION

Motion may be the most overrated topic in introductory physics. It is often the first topic covered in the course, and in some courses, the pure study of kinematics can linger from August through September and deep into October. That struck me as excessive, but any physics course is largely the story as told by the instructor.

The bundle begins with perhaps the first Conceptual Physics Alive! lecture filmed, "Linear Motion". Groundwork is laid as terms are defined and examples are provided.

"Motivating the Moving Man" is a PhET-fueled sim lab that focuses on translating motion graphs into verbal descriptions and verbal descriptions into motion graphs.

A Bundle of Phyz: NUCLEAR PHYSICS

Segment 4 of Physics of the Universe (the NGSS Three-Course Model physics course) is all about nuclear physics. There are only six segments for the whole course, and one of them is nuclear. I don't know about you, but I know I wasn't going hard at nuclear physics in my regular physics course prior to Physics of the Universe.

The bundle opens with a question set for Conceptual Physics Alive's "Radioactivity," followed by a PhET-fueled fun activity, "Radioactive Speed Dating" for some quick radiometric dating practice. 

A Bundle of Phyz: ATOMIC PHYSICS

This bundle begins with Paul Hewitt's homage to atoms, followed by The Mechanical Universe episode, "The Atom." Different perspectives, indeed.

"The Photoelectric Effect" Lab Springboard utilizes a few videoclips and PhET's The Photoelectric Effect sim to introduce this surprising topic.

"Fantasia on the Photoelectric Effect" provides a mechanical model to help understand the phenomena.

For a more quantitative look into the photoelectric effect, "Shine a Light" uses PhET's Photoelectric Effect sim. Students collect data, calculate key quantities, and plot results.

A Bundle of Phyz: LIGHT AND COLOR

As fortune would have it, there are many Phyz things involving light and color.

The bundle opens with an encyclopedic "Tour of the Electromagnetic Spectrum," produced by NASA. Next up is a look at a 2008 viral ad campaign, "Cell Phone Popcorn". Popping corn with phones was an urban legend in the early days of smartphones. 

Next up is a colorful sequence. "Pixel Peeping" and "Fun With Colors" were originally written for in-person instruction, but modified into Virtual Labs for remote teaching/distance learning (RT;DL). Conceptual Physics Alive's "Light and Color" follows nicely. Then a pair of color mixing YouTube Physics lessons explore cephalopod camouflage and the mystery of magenta. How much do you know about chromatophores?

A Bundle of Phyz: WAVES AND SOUND

Waves: it's difficult to communicate without them. I consider them to be fundamental to the study of physics. 

This collection opens with two PhET-fueled experience-builders, "Water Waves in an Electric Sink" and "High Quiet Low Loud". It continues with video lessons from Conceptual Physics Alive "Vibrations and Sound I" and "Vibrations and Sound II," with The Mechanical Universe episode, "Waves" in between. It ends with the BBC's somewhat metaphysical examination of waves and their intrinsic ephemeral nature, "The Secret Life of Waves".

A Bundle of Phyz: WAVES AND SOUND at Teachers Pay Teachers

A Bundle of Phyz: ELECTROMAGNETISM

Upon posting the RT;DL Virtual Lab Experiments related to electromagnetism, I realized I had a bunch of resources on that topic. So I created a bundle to gather and discount them.

A Bundle of Phyz: ELECTROMAGNETISM at Teachers Pay Teachers

The bundle includes the Virtuals: "Seeing Magnetic Fields," "Ørsted's Discovery," "Electric Magnetism," and "Magnetic Electricity," YouTube Skepticism: "Magnet Boys," The Mechanical Universe: "Magnetism," "Magnetic Fields," and "Electromagnetic Induction," Conceptual Physics Alive: "Magnetism and Electromagnetic Induction," NOVA's "Magnetic Storm," and BBC's Shock and Awe: Part 2. "The Age of Invention." All the resources in the bundle are available separately. And they're all print-friendly Google Docs files to accommodate whatever kind of teaching you're doing at the moment.

There's also a link to the activity I wrote for PhET's Faraday's Electromagnetic Lab. It's free on PhET's activities list for the sim as a PDF file.

This is a big bundle. As was the case in the electrostatics bundle, there were some resources that struck me as related to, but not central to introductory electromagnetism. I listed them in the product description for anyone keen to even dive deeper into this topic. 

Fun With Colors [PhET]

Once I saw how much students enjoyed exploring colors with Pixel Peeping, I thought I'd take that curiosity a step further with an add-on activity that didn't require any materials beyond the means of running PhET's Color Vision simulation.

Running this in-person required my first distribution of color copies. I printed the student documents in quantity on my color laser printer at home until I was able to secure a color laser printer for my classroom. Unfortunately, there came a time when the school's principal decided to wage war on the cost of printing done by teachers and rejected all in-room printing supply requests. So I had the printer, but no more toner. And no more printed pages. I trust the savings were worth it.

In any case, "Fun With Colors" is quirky and brief, so I posted it as a freebie.

Fun With Colors [PhET] free at Teachers Pay Teachers