Pixel Peeping [PhET+Virtual Lab]

Students have been looking at screens too much for about two years. Some would say it's been longer than that. But have they really looked at those screens? Up close? "Pixel Peeping" asks them to do just that.

For the in-person version, we used pocket magnifiers to examine the pixel structure on our classroom laptop LCD screens. We protected the screens from the magnifiers with sheets of transparency film. (You remember transparencies, right? And carbon paper, film canisters, telephone cords, ...)

PhET's Color Vision sim is activated. The activity begins innocently enough with microscopic inspections of red, green, and blue. Things take a turn when white is examined, and go off the rails with yellow. 

Brainiac Electric Fence [Virtual Demonstration]

This was a video demo to begin with. So it was half-way virtual already. To maximize its utility, I needed to chop this Brainiac: Science Abuse segment up and intersperse questions. The physics is nice in that it ranges from fundamental up to “beyond the scope of this introductory course”. From conductors and insulators, through series circuits, to R-2R resistor ladders. This is a nice lesson to put near the end of a circuits unit. 

Since I remixed the segment (really just chopped it up), I'm posting this as a Fair Use freebie. 

Brainiac Electric Fence [Virtual Demonstration] free at Teachers Pay Teachers

Includes:

Student document (print-friendly Google Docs file)

Observation Presentation (HTML link embedded in and URL printed in student document)

Answer key (Google docs file)

A Bundle of Phyz: ELECTRIC CIRCUITS

The bundle begins with The Mechanical Universe's "The Battery," since batteries often power the simple DC circuits we like in Physics.

Next it's the PhET-fueled "Batteries and Bulbs". Originally written as a hands-on lab activity, this version was redesigned for use in remote teaching/distance learning (RT;DL).

Conceptual Physics Alive's "Electric Circuits" is Paul Hewitt's take on the matter; The Mechanical Universe's "Electric Circuits" is David Goodstein's. Both are excellent.

Britain's Brainiac: Science Abuse serves up an engaging and offbeat take on electric circuits with humans acting as the resistors in "Electric Fence". Some will recognize host Richard Hammond from Top Gear, etc.

We return to the battery and update its story with David Pogue's PBS/NOVA episode, "Search for the Super Battery".

Then we have "Logic Gates," in which Boolean algebra is played out in circuit form as students design simple circuits with switches that will turn a bulb on under specific conditions. To prepare students for Boole and truth tables, a gentle pre-lab worksheet has them drawing up gate configurations that allow a cow access to a pasture under specific conditions.

Once students master the single pole single throw (STSP) switches of "Logic Gates," they might want to have a go at designing a three-way switch, which involves SPDT (single pole double throw) switches.

A Bundle of Phyz: ELECTRIC CIRCUITS at Teachers Pay Teachers

All resources are available separately. All are print-friendly Google Docs files on Google Drive. All include answer keys.

If the shorter High School Adaptations of The Mechanical Universe are more your style, then check out Set 6: Circuits and Magnetism.

If you didn't work Shock and Awe - Part 1: Spark into your electrostatics lessons, that episode still works well with electric circuits.

High Quiet Low Loud [PhET]

Distinguishing between amplitude and frequency with mechanical waves is a lesson that lends itself to a computer activity that allows students to modify wave forms. When students can see a visual representation of a sound wave while listening to the wave, and then manipulate the amplitude and/or frequency of the source, the distinctions tend to stick.

PASCO's Waveport plugin for DataStudio provided a great vehicle for such an exploration. But times change and PASCO has moved on to the powerful Capstone and flexible SPARKvue applications.

Water Waves in an Electric Sink [PhET]

A unit on mechanical waves and sound can include many delightful demonstrations and labs. Computer simulations can also be a part of that healthy diet.

Here's one I developed to give students immediate visual feedback and control of representations of mechanical waves. And a sense of why there's a "volume" control on devices that produce sound. Isn't volume a geometry idea?

Water Waves in an Electric Sink [PhET] at Teachers Pay Teachers

It's a print-friendly Google Docs file and includes an answer key, as is customary at The Lessons of Phyz on Teachers Pay Teachers.

A Bundle of Phyz: ELECTROSTATICS

Once the Virtual Lab Experiments for electrostatics were posted to TpT, I thought it might be useful to collect all my various and sundry electrostatics resources across all platforms.

After gathering such a "Bundle of Phyz," I realized there were even more. But I wanted to hold the bundle to what I considered the most important to a first-year experience. Maybe someday I'll group the others into a sequel bundle.

For now, here's ...

A Bundle of Phyz: ELECTROSTATICS at Teachers Pay Teachers

It includes Virtuals: A Pithy Matter, Electroscopia, and Charging Ahead, Mechanical Universe: Static Electricity, PhET: Laws of Repulsion, Conceptual Physics Alive: Electrostatics, NOVA: Lightning, and Shock and Awe: Spark. Everything in the bundle can be purchased separately. The advantage of bundling is a discount.

A whole nother bundle's worth of resources are linked to in the product description. They drill down a bit deeper into the realm of the electric field, voltage, equipotentials, and capacitance.

The Mechanical Universe of Phyz

I updated this Mechanical Universe index page to repair all the Teachers Pay Teachers links. When I upgraded all the question sets from PDFs to Google Docs on Google Drive, the logistics of TpT required that they be posted as new products. New products meant all new URLs.

In any case, the links are now repaired. The page continues to provide inks to every episode of The Mechanical Universe ever made, college and high school.

The Mechanical Universe of Phyz

The Magnetism Suite [Virtual Lab Experiments and PhET]

There were several electromagnetism lab activities that I transformed into remote teaching/distance learning (RT;DL), Zoom/breakout-roomable activities. I have upgraded those Google Docs (and added answer keys) and posted them to The Lessons of Phyz at Teachers Pay Teachers.

For the most part, the student instructions remain much as what they would have been for the in-person classroom lab activity. But the observations have been filmed and the videoclips sequenced for remote instruction logistics.

A C T I V I T I E S

Seeing Magnetic Fields [Virtual Lab Experiment]

This is a series of observations involving different configurations of permanent bar magnets. A Magnetic Field Projectual (designed to be used on the stage of an overhead projector). For in-person instruction, each group is given a projectual and two soft-iron bar magnets (freshly remagnetized in our “trusty” magnetizer).

Ørsted's Discovery [Virtual Lab Experiment]

In this sequence of observations, the magnetic field around a current-carrying wire is investigated. Using batteries, wires, and compasses, we eventually develop the mnemonic of "The Right Hand Rule" for the direction of that magnetic field.

To keep things a bit more engaging in the engagement-limiting realm of a virtual lab conducted over Zoom, the configurations in some parts of the activity were randomized. That randomization is announced in the observations presentation.

The Laws of Repulsion [PhET]

Coulomb's Law always threw my classroom game off a bit. I didn't have the apparatus, time, temperament, or desire to attempt to do a real hands-on deep dive lab. But I bristled at just delivering it under the hand-waving practice know as ICBS (It Can Be Shown ... and also ... I see BS).

I settled on a dry lab that would reveal Coulomb's Law through numerical patterns in an essentially empirical process. A paper, pencil, and preso PhyzSpringboard that was ... good enough.

In the meantime, PhET's Gravity Force Lab sim drew me into its lair of pattern-finding for universal gravitation, which compelled me to write an activity I called The Laws of Attraction (not to be confused with the 2004 Pierce Brosnan/Julianne Moore romcom of the same name).

When PhET's Coulomb's Law sim popped up on my radar, it seemed fitting to reboot The Laws of Attraction for electrostatic forces between point charges. The title of the activity reflects this heritage while incorporating something electrostatic force does that gravitational force does not. In all, a more deeply engaging activity that still avoids the practical pitfalls of delicate torsion pendulums, etc.. 

The Laws of Repulsion [PhET] at Teachers Pay Teachers

Charging Ahead - Virtual Demonstration

The RT;DL Virtuals continue with a demonstration.

Charging Ahead (among my favorite activity titles) is my deep dive into the joys of the Van de Graaff generator. There was no way I was going to let the challenges imposed by remote teaching/distance learning (RT;DL) stop me from presenting this demo to my students.

At this point in pandemic instruction, I had turned my empty classroom into a flexible live vlogging studio. You probably had, too. But I put in extra effort to get viable videoclips for this classic.

I embedding the harvest of clips in the presentation I normally ran in parallel to the in-class demo. The product was the hybrid preso at the core of this resource.

Unlike the Virtual Lab Experiments described in a separate post, you guide the whole class through this one. No Zoom breakout rooms. Preview the included answer key. Students will need your help with the elements of these demos that involve polarization. The electrostatic attraction of a polarized neutral object makes more sense in students know about Coulomb's law.

My Blog of Phyz post, "RT;DL Charging Ahead" post provides more background. But if you find yourself in need of demonstrating the grooviness of the Van de Graaff generator remotely, this is your ride.

Charging Ahead [Virtual Demonstration] at Teacher Pay Teachers

Introducing RT;DL Virtuals: A Pithy Matter and Electroscopia

In the throes of my panicked pandemic preparation for my Physics and AP Physics courses, I tried to preserve as much of the flavor of the in-person courses as I could. But with students online at home rather than in class with hands on apparatus, what to do? This was just one of the ongoing challenges of remote teaching/distance learning (RT;DL).

I opted to record observations for students to watch as they worked through lab activities. Students worked together in lab group Zoom breakout rooms. There are obvious downsides, and there were no doubt creative and innovative ways to leverage benefits (?) of the Zoom medium. But I'm just not that clever. Keeping head above water was challenge enough.

The upside to this approach was that the lab activity instructions needed only moderate modification. And that matched my goal. So the eventual post-lab quizzes required very little adjustment (if any).

Here are two of the products of that redesign process, now polished for distribution in my Lessons of Phyz store at Teachers Pay Teachers. These are devoted to electrostatics. Details are in the product descriptions.

The activities are written much as they would be for in-class, hands-on experiences. But students access the videoclips of procedures to make their observations. And there are special Instructors' Only videoclips to be shone to student groups when they've reached the point in the activity that calls for those observations. I did my best to provide group-specific observations so that inappropriate inter-group collaborations (i.e., cheating) is minimized. 

I'm happy with how they turned out. They may not be as good as Pivot Interactives, but why would you judge me against such a high standard?

A Pithy Matter [Virtual Lab Experiment] at Teachers Pay Teachers

Electroscopia [Virtual Lab Experiment] at Teachers Pay Teachers

Each of these includes:

Student print-friendly Google Docs file

Answer Key (Google Docs)

Access to video observations (link embedded in student file)

Instructor access to special observations (link embedded in the answer key)

Batteries and Bulbs - PhET

When I was frantically redesigning lab activities for remote teaching/distance learning (RT;DL) in 2021, a practical goal was to do so in such a way that my existing post-lab quizzes would require as little modification as possible. No mods would be ideal! 

For this one, I knew I could lean on PhET's Circuit Construction Kit: DC fairly hard, even though I had never previously used it in class. I had always been quite content to do this activity hands-on in class. The opening section had students sketching and labeling the anatomy of miniature incandescent light bulbs, which is very helpful in getting one to light using a battery and some wires.

I maintained that section, using a photo of said bulb. From there, we went into the PhET sim (with a better understanding of why PhET shows the bulb's contact points the way it does). The explorations I previously had students do with real batteries, bulbs, and wires were easy enough to replicate in the sim. I do prefer the in-class, hands-on version of this lab, but that version was not on the menu in Spring 2021.

A favorite moment in this activity is the question of how bright the bulb will light if two batteries are used instead of one. The correct answer is not the intuitive one. Students get a second crack at answering that one after they explore the possibilities. 

In any case, my old post-lab quiz needed very little modification. Now it makes a perfect solution for students who miss the in-class activity. Or however you might envision using it.

Batteries and Bulbs [PhET] at Teachers Pay Teachers

Welcome to Earth

National Geographic · 2021 · Presenter: Will Smith

Darren Aronofsky and Will Smith teamed up in 2016 for National Geographic's One Strange Rock. For that series, US astronauts offered their perspective on the home planet while the storyline focused on the things that make life possible and enduring on Earth. The photography is stunning. The locations and people are captivating. And the astronauts hold the narrative together, along with Will Smith. I created questions sets for all the episodes. To me, the mix of earth science and biology made One Strange Rock a natural fit for the NGSS course, The Living Earth.

Sources on the Internet indicated that a second season had been green lit. But ... crickets ... then the pandemic. I had given up by the time promos appeared. Seems like I only knew of it weeks before Welcome to Earth premiered on Disney+.

In this series, Will Smith wants to be an explorer. A team of explorers take him to the ends of the earth and beyond. Aronofsky's cinematographers continue to shine. Most episodes clock in at 40 minutes or less (episode 1 is 44 minutes). The academic content is less dense than it was in One Strange Rock. The unexpected bonus is great representation, including a blind wilderness explorer and an agile amputee.

Welcome to Earth on Teachers Pay Teachers

E P I S O D E S

1. THE SILENT ROAR
On a remote island in the Pacific, Will Smith descends into the heart of an active volcano to investigate sounds beyond human hearing. Will discovers that everything on our planet creates its own unique sound—even if we can’t always hear it. With the help of technology, we can tune into the hidden sounds of our planet, from the pull of the moon on our mountains and cities to a silent rumble so deep and powerful, it can move the earth around it. 

Shooting locations include Tanna in Vanuatu, the Mid-Atlantic Ocean, San Juan de la Vega in Mexico, Öran in Sweden, and The Dolomites in Italy. Explorers include Erik Weihenmayer, Jeffrey Johnson, Diva Amon, Cory Richards, and Michel André.

Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity

BBC · 2011 · Presenter: Jim Al-Khalili

Until recently, electricity was seen as a magical power. It could slay the living, revive the dead, and bend the laws of nature. It is now the lifeblood of the modern world, fueling our lives and underpinning every aspect of technological advancement. Without it, we would be lost. Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the electrifying story of our quest to master nature's most mysterious force.

Al-Khalili takes us on a journey from the pioneers of electrostatic demonstrations to the age of electromagnetic waves. It's a human story of the history of electricity, with twists and turns I did not know.

Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity on Teachers Pay Teachers

E P I S O D E S

1. SPARK
This episode presents a nice history of early electrical devices and practitioners. Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the story of our quest to master nature's most mysterious force - electricity. Episode one tells the story of the very first `natural philosophers' who started to unlock the mysteries of electricity. They studied its curious link to life, built strange and powerful instruments to create it and even tamed lightning itself.

Atom

BBC · 2007 · Presenter: Jim Al-Khalili

The story of the discovery that everything is made from atoms, one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history, and the brilliant minds behind it.

Atom on Teachers Pay Teachers

E P I S O D E S

1. CLASH OF TITANS 
The modern understanding of the atom unfolded in the early years of the twentieth century. Baffling discoveries made by ingenious experimental scientists challenged the foremost theoretical physicists of the era. Rival factions fought over competing models. The players were human, with human strengths and weaknesses. Hard-fought victories were matched by crushing defeats. At the end of it all, a contemporary model of the atom emerged. Heads up: the expletive abbreviated “BS” is uttered in this episode.

Featured scientists: Ludwig Boltzmann, Albert Einstein, Ernest Rutherford, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, and Max Born.

Universe Revealed

PBS NOVA · 2021 · Narrator: Talithia Williams

 

In this five-part series, NOVA delves into the vastness of space to capture moments of high drama when the universe changed forever. State-of-the-art animation gives us astonishing, photo-realistic glimpses of the birth of a star in a stellar nursery, the chaos created as two galaxies collide, and the power of a super-massive black hole as it flings a star across space so violently that it's still traveling 10 million years later. NOVA even takes viewers back on the ultimate time travel voyage, to witness the birth of space and time itself. Informed by huge advances in scientific understanding, the series brings us face-to-face with the most surprising characters in the cosmos and reveals how their fates are intertwined with our own. Take a ringside seat for the greatest show in the universe.

I confess feeling simultaneous embarrassment and exhilaration while watching this series, as I learned something I did not know in each episode. Don't get me wrong: you could fill the Grand Canyon with Things I Don't Know, even if you limit it to Things I Should Know. I'll take the hits to my ego to add "Fermi bubbles" to my vocabulary. 

I think this series incorporates nicely into NGSS Physics of the Universe. Especially Segment 6. And there is a refreshing diversity among the on-screen content experts that has been missing from astronomy documentaries of yesteryear.

Watch this on the biggest screen you can manage. The visuals are gorgeous, and the sounds fill the room.

Universe Revealed on Teachers Pay Teachers

E P I S O D E S

1. AGE OF STARS
The sun is our life-giving source of light, heat, and energy, and new discoveries are unraveling its epic history. Join NOVA on a spectacular voyage to discover the sun’s place in a grand cycle of birth, death and renewal that makes this the age of stars. Witness how stars of every size and color came to populate our universe; how stars stage a dramatic exit when they explode as supernovae, which can outshine an entire galaxy; and how, billions of years in the future, the age of stars will lead ultimately to an age of darkness.

Featuring Gibor Basri, Sownak Bose, Emma Chapman, David Charbonneau, Christopher Chen, Payel Das, Courtney Dressing, Rana Ezzeddine, Lucie Green, Ghina Halabi, Nia Imara, Kelly Korreck, Philip Muirhead, Eugene Parker, Raman Prinja, Grant Tremblay, and Anjali Tripathi.

Beyond the Elements

PBS NOVA · 2020 · Presenter: David Pogue

Picking up where he left off in NOVA's popular special, Hunting the Elements, David Pogue sets out on a worldwide quest to find the key molecules and chemical reactions that have paved the way for human civilization, life, and even the universe as we know it. And along the way, he uncovers the simple principles that produce such a dizzying diversity of matter from elements on the periodic table.

Beyond the Elements on Teachers Pay Teachers

E P I S O D E S

1. REACTIONS
Just about every solid, liquid, or gas in the world as we know it begins with reactions between individual atoms and molecules. Host David Pogue dives into the transformative world of chemical reactions, from the complex formula that produces cement to the single reaction that’s allowed farmers to feed a global population by the billions—a reaction that when reversed, unleashes the powerful chemistry of high explosives.

Featuring Eric Buchanan, Edward Cussler, Joseph Franek, John Goetz, Juliette Gorson, Theodore Gray, John Hayes, Mandë Holford, Cory Marquart, and Tom Pleva.

Hunting the Elements

PBS NOVA · 2011 · Presenter: David Pogue

HUNTING THE ELEMENTS

Where do nature's building blocks, called the elements, come from? They're the hidden ingredients of everything in our world, from the carbon in our bodies to the metals in our smartphones. To unlock their secrets, David Pogue, technology columnist and lively host of NOVA's popular "Making Stuff" series, spins viewers through the world of weird, extreme chemistry: the strongest acids, the deadliest poisons, the universe's most abundant elements, and the rarest of the rare—substances cooked up in atom smashers that flicker into existence for only fractions of a second.

Hunting the Elements on Teachers Pay Teachers

Student document and answer key are provided as a Google Docs on Google Drive.

Chemistry: A Volatile History

BBC · 2010 · Presenter: Jim Al-Khalili

Series in which Jim Al-Khalili traces the story of how the elements, the building blocks that make up our entire world, were discovered and mapped.

Chemistry: A Volatile History on Teachers Pay Teachers

E P I S O D E S

1. THE DISCOVERY OF THE ELEMENTS

The story of how the elements were discovered and mapped begins with the alchemists who questioned that the world was made up of earth, air, fire and water.

2. THE ORDER OF THE ELEMENTS 

Professor Jim Al-Khalili looks at how the early scientists' bid to decode the order of the elements was driven by false starts and bitter disputes.

Earth Science 6: Astronomy Beyond the Solar System

Earth Science 6: Astronomy Beyond the Solar System on Teachers Pay Teachers

P R O G R A M S

1. LIFE AND DEATH OF A STAR

Ignited by the power of the atom, burning with light, heat and wrath, stars are anything but peaceful. They collide, devour each other, and explode in enormous supernovas.

2. INVISIBLE UNIVERSE REVEALED 

Twenty-five years ago, NASA launched one of the most ambitious experiments in the history of astronomy: the Hubble Space Telescope. In honor of Hubble's landmark anniversary, NOVA tells the remarkable story of the telescope that forever changed our understanding of the cosmos. But Hubble's early days nearly doomed it to failure: a one-millimeter engineering blunder had turned the billion-dollar telescope into an object of ridicule. It fell to five heroic astronauts in a daring mission to return Hubble to the cutting edge of science. This single telescope has helped astronomers pinpoint the age of the universe, revealed the birthplace of stars and planets, advanced our understanding of dark energy and cosmic expansion, and uncovered black holes lurking at the heart of galaxies. Join NOVA for the story of this magnificent machine and its astonishing discoveries.