Download Practical activities from the 2014 Physics Teachers

2014 Physics Teachers Conference
Suggested Practical Activities from the Discussion Group Session
Unit 1: Electricity
 Old appliances are pulled apart and get students to draw circuit diagrams based on what they
find. Students make predictions about what they think the appliances are made up of before
they pull them apart.
 Get power bill from home, make predictions about how much energy they will save if they
were to install solar panels.
 Wheatstone bridge circuit
 Black box, hidden circuit, switches do this & this to figure out what is inside.
 Use early Lego technics as 'black boxes'
 Solar power investigation: radiance meters, consider efficiency, performance. Open circuit
voltage, Short circuit current. With Melb's 3 MW usage how many solar cells are required,
angles, cloud, dust, etc.
 Electrostatics (inverse square, electroscope, Van de Graaf, bunsen burner, fluoro tube) (2)
 Introduce voltage divider
 Internal resistance of a battery
 PhET website (homework based on line tasks) (2) Check
http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/physics/electricity-magnets-and-circuits for a
range of circuit simulations . Each Simulation has a range of teaching ideas . Check out
'Circuit Construction Kit - DC only'.
 Crocodile clips (Yenka http://www.crocodile-clips.com/ ) (simulation) (2) It has a free home
licence. For school use the 'Basic Circuits' free for more sophisticated circuits, there is a
school licence fee of about $1000
 Wind turbine, solar cells
 VI characteristics of LED, light globe, resistor
 Resistivity with pencils looking at different lengths, grades of pencil, cross sectional area
 Thermistors and temp dependence
 Measuring voltage across and current through a light globe to see ohmic and non-ohmic
characteristics of the globe. (2)
 Ohm's law using resistors (ceramic resistors)
 Using graphs to prove Ohm's Law
 Series and parallel circuits
 Nichrome wire
 Wiring a circuit to represent parallel house wiring.
 Jelly beans or jubes for current and voltage.
 Photographing circuits to include in report
 Designing circuits with a particular brief, e.g. one switch to control two globes
 In Year 11 could do a summary report of five little pracs, leads into Year 12 and gives them
valuable experience.
 Problem is that very little electricity is taught in prior science and often it is taught by nonphysics teachers. We feel that students come to the course with many misconceptions.
The vicphysics webpage, http://www.vicphysics.org/electricity.html has additional examples.
2014 Physics Teachers Conference
Suggested Practical Activities from the Discussion Group Session
Unit 2: Light
 Light box experiments
 Slinkies
 Fibre optics
 RGB LEDs for colour mixing
 IEC kits for photonics unit include receiver, optical fibre, photodiodes and printed materials
($300)
 Ripple tank experiments
 Reflection: Students with mirrors and one lens. Light is to be reflected by each mirror and end
up at a determined target.
 PhET website Check http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/physics/light-andradiation . Each Simulation has a range of teaching ideas .
 A set of short introductory activities on the properties of light to generate interest and
questions. Some activities are: i) shine rays from a light box through bifocal spectacles, ii) use
a slide projector to calculate magnification and investigate how the object should be moved
relative to the lens to produce a larger, but still clear image, iii) describe your image as you
walk up to a large plane mirror, iv) using a Fresnel lens from a OHP, v) looking down through
a glass block to observe apparent depth and so on. See link below.
The vicphysics webpage, http://www.vicphysics.org/wavelight.html has additional examples of
practical activities.
Unit 2: Motion
 Drop a shot put from different heights and measure impacts depth
 Magnets on an air track: repulsion as an explosion, attraction as a sticky collision (velcro also
works)
 Video analysis: Tracker https://www.cabrillo.edu/~dbrown/tracker/
 'Hot wheels' cars with velcro in collisions. Use high speed cameras to measure speed before
and after.
 Different ways of measuring 'g' - Tain labs
 Fire a rocket to analyse acceleration
 'Angry Birds', but does include projectile motion
 Parachute drop analysis
 St line motion: use a stop watch to measure 't' to get 'a' and then compare to datalogged value
for vel vs time.
 Friction on a surface: roll vehicle to produce vel vs time graph.
 Weight pulling a cart: Net F = ma, datalogged.
 Collision: Momentum conservation in elastic and inelastic. use datalogger.
 Using Logger Pro or Tracker to analyse air track using ball dropping.
 Ticker timers objects down a plank or dropped
 Analysing Usain Bolt's 100 m from YouTube,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmKdzHbSi4o ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaITHIc7zVM, http://io9.com/the-physics-of-usain-boltsworld-record-100-meter-dash-924744818, http://iopscience.iop.org/01430807/34/5/1227/article
 Connected bodies on a pulley
 Running a race and graphing motion of students
 Clapping in a paddock and getting students to measure the speed of sound
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Ball on a track: calculate PE and measure final speed
Ice skating excursion
Physics Gizmo, use phone as accelerometer and can email results.
http://www.android4schools.com/2012/06/11/use-physics-gizmo-to-collect-physics-data/
Comment from one of the chairpersons: Sometimes I hear ideas like these but don't understand
what steps the students should do. I would love to see an outline of a method for some of these
experiments.
The vicphysics webpage, http://www.vicphysics.org/movement.html has additional examples of
practical activities.
2014 Physics Teachers Conference
Suggested Practical Activities from the Discussion Group Session
Unit 3: Electronics and photonics
 Optical transmission of data
 Show clipping of amplifiers on a CRO
 9 V battery to show a DC offset in a circuit using a CRO
 Voltage divider circuits: measure the Vout across two different resistors.
 Photophone (Youtube clip)
 Dick Smith kits
 Yenka software for modelling circuits esp amplifiers
The vicphysics webpage, http://www.vicphysics.org/electronicsphotonics.html has additional
examples of practical activities.
Unit 3: Motion in 1 and 2 D
 Measuring spring constant
 Luna park data analysis
 Circular motion
 Parachute design - area, spill hole, size and mass
 Green florist's foam used to measure impact depth
 Projectile motion & energy considerations using iPad app to capture and analyse motion video tracker.
 Circular loop the loop captured using using iPad app to capture and analyse motion - video
tracker.
 Analysing NASA website data on the ISS for verifying orbital speed with position and g.
The vicphysics webpage, http://www.vicphysics.org/motion.html has additional examples of practical
activities.
2014 Physics Teachers Conference
Suggested Practical Activities from the Discussion Group Session
Unit 4: Electric power
 Mapping fields of magnets, coils, wires and meters
 A swing of copper wire above a magnet: moves when current flows
 Investigating F = nBIl using an electronic balance
 Induction cookers in family homes, Induction plates for electric cars
 Transformers
 Power transmission models
 Power loss using Nichrome wire (20 - 32g) metres across room. Use 10 - 25 V, rheostat for
load, downlight for load, non contact current meter used for safety.
 Build a motor
 Handmade speaker
 Loudspeaker as a microphone
 Open up an old drill
 Faraday's motor
 Aluminium tube and drop neodymium magnet down it.
 Iron fillings for field lines
 Force between two strips of tin foil.
 Demountable transformer demos
 Magnet rifle
 EMI prac with solenoids, magnets and switches and galvanometers
 Use CRO to display induced EMF from solenoid as magnet is dropped through.
The vicphysics webpage, http://www.vicphysics.org/power.html , has additional examples of practical
activities.