The Applied Physics course I teach requires me to significantly limit the amount of math. I had to completely re-think the concept of Physics in a high school setting. The result is a course focused on hands-on exploration of physics concepts as well as open-ended experiments the class develops as a group. I've learned a lot about experimentation teaching this class, which has proven helpful as we move toward the NGSS.
Below are some video examples of lessons I've developed for this course.
click on the photo to start the video
Measure Distance Using the Speed of Sound [Gazdonian Productions]:
An off-handed student suggestion spurred this challenge: Can We Measure Distance Using the Speed of Sound?. We spent weeks problem solving the heck out of this one. Definitely a highlight of my 17 year teaching career. In this video we're asking for help from sound experts when we got a little stuck about 70% of the way through the project. |
How Strong is a Trader Joe's Paper Bag? [Gazdonian Productions]:
Every time I go to Trader Joe's (frozen green beans!) they always double bag my groceries, with the cashier adding a comment along the lines of, "I'll double-bag these because our bags are not strong." So I decided to test how much a single bag could actually hold. We even got TJs CEO Dan Bane on board (amazingly) and he was into our test. So that was cool. |
Is it Worthwhile to Pre-Heat Your Coffee Mug? [Joe Werner, student]:
This is a "video lab write-up" a student made for this heat transfer experiment. |
Friction: How Adding Sand to Ice Reduces Friction[Gazdonian Productions]:
An overview of an experiment we did on a huge sheet of ice in our school's courtyard. |
Version 2: Is Your Skateboard Slower in Cold Weather? [Gazdonian Productions]:
The weak design of my first stab at this experiment has always bothered me. So I set out to create a better experiment from the ground up to answer the age-old question "Does Cold Temps Affect My Skateboard?" This one is much better. |
Build It! The Sound Improver Project [Gazdonian Productions]:
School should be more about doing. Something I found at a park one morning lead to this project where students build their own device to improve the sound quality of their cell phones. Before starting this project we learn a little about acoustics. |
Slo-Mo Freefall [Gazdonian Productions]:
This classic physics demo has much more oomph when seen in slow motion. |
Law of Reflection: Two Mirror Reflection [Gazdonian Productions]:
This takes the straight-forward Law of Reflection and turns it into an interesting problem-solving activity for students. If you hold back from showing students how to do it and instead provide only gentle nudging, students really get into problem solving mode.
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Experiment: How to Tape Stuff [Gazdonian Productions]: Both the students and I enjoy open-ended experiments that we've never conducted before. This is a pretty basic one, but after doing it I'll never use tape things the same way again. So that's cool.
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Graphing Relationships: Kid on Bike [Gazdonian Productions]:
My students consistently struggle with graphing relationships. To help solidify the concepts I knew presenting clear, real-world situations would be the best chance for success. In lieu of the all-too-common scenario of a teacher standing in front of class saying, "Imagine a kid riding a bike...[insert a stick-figure diagram being poorly drawn on the board]..." I wanted to show an actual kid riding and actual bike. So me and my son Danny took to the sidewalk and I use the resulting video as raw material for students to sketch line graphs for accel, displacement and velocity.
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Graphing Relationships: Skateboarding Clips [Gazdonian Productions]:
This is my next step for teaching graphing relationships after the Kid on Bike clips. I show the individual clips in this video one at a time and have students graph variables such as acceleration, displacement, velocity vs. time for each. I can see kids' minds working as they do this. It really helps to engage students in what is a generally boring topic for them [graphing]. |
Torque in the Real World [Gazdonian Productions]:
A quick video I filmed to show how I apply the concept of torque in my driveway. |
Bearing Test: Is Your Skateboard Slower in Cold Weather? [Gazdonian Productions]:
A conversation with a fellow skater one cold January morning at NYC's Chelsea Piers skatepark prompted this classroom experiment. UPDATE: Look for the new and improved test of cold-weather skateboarding we conducted in Feb 2018. Editing in progress... |
