The Blog of Phyz
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High school physics education issues as seen by one California teacher: From content standards to critical thinking.
The Blog of Phyz
9M ago
Pegboard 1.0
While driving to Winnemucca for last October's annular eclipse, I stopped by the Lowe's in Idaho Falls to pick up a panel of pegboard. Nothing crazy; just 2" x 4". The holes in the pegboard act as pinholes for for the sunlight. They'll cast "sunbelt" images any time the Sun is out. They'll cast sun-crescents during partial eclipses. Pegboard 1.0 was great fun at our impromptu remote Nevada rest stop eclipse party.
But I didn't like how uniform it was. Identical holes at identical spacing.
Pegboard 2.0
So I decided that for April 8, I'd dirty things up a bit with some d ..read more
The Blog of Phyz
1y ago
"Posters" has been a recurring skit on Saturday Night Live. It originally featured guest Emma Stone and cast member Pete Davidson, with additional cast members Mikey Day, Kenan Thompson, and Kate McKinnon. It seems to be resurrected whenever Stone hosts.
Last night, "Posters" was staged again, this time with Marcello Hernández and Ego Nwodom alongside Stone, Day, and Thompson. The talking posters assured Hernández that physics was—in fact—relevant.
The punchline stinger at the end of the skit is always a graphic showing the subsequent failed exam.
I posted the skit to Twitter/X (@phyzman ..read more
The Blog of Phyz
1y ago
In retirement, I find moments of serendipity from time to time. While meandering the Interwebz looking for the source material used in a lesson on electric field lines, I came across a Reddit post by user SchoggiToeff. They compiled a list of films produced for the Physical Sciences Study Committee (PSSC) in the Cold War era that have survived through to the Age of YouTube (and The Internet Archive).
PSSC Films Available on the Internet
The Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC) Films are a set of 53 films made in the late 1950 early 1960 for US high school physics. The films are also refe ..read more
The Blog of Phyz
2y ago
I recently came across a video of Tape Measures "racing" along a board of wood as they retract. Who doesn't love extending the tape as far as you can and recklessly letting it fly in. It obviously accelerates dramatically. Like any physics minded person I got to wondering if the force is constant. How might we assess?
I'm home for the summer, a summer I desperately needed, and away from some of my usual tools. No probeware. No students to help. First I put a small bucket with a handle on a food scale from our kitchen. I extended the tape me ..read more
The Blog of Phyz
2y ago
Assessments: quizzes, tests, exams. There is a big part of the teacher's soul that hates these things. We love our subject matter and love sharing it with our students. We love it when our students are engaged with our subject matter and learning.
Tests? What a chore. You need to construct them. You need to administer them, You need to grade them. Yuck. Yuck. And yuck.
Construction: what should be assessed and how? Is that question too hard or too easy? Administration: to what extent can cheating be prevented and how much energy is that going to cost? Grading: do you hate multiple choice or ..read more
The Blog of Phyz
3y ago
Among the accepted truths of Watergate is that the Nixon campaign didn't need to do it. He was going to win the 1972 Presidential. There was no need to break into the Democratic National Committee offices; there was no intelligence that a Nixon campaign really needed. Nevertheless, break in they did. And Nixon eventually resigned as a consequence.
At the September 2021 Apple Event (California Streaming), the reality distortion field (RDF) was energized for a slew of new tech offerings. Among them, Apple Watch Series 7. The face of the watch was enlarged by a few pixels. But marketing is m ..read more
The Blog of Phyz
3y ago
Derek Muller started creating unique videos that are often related to physics and physics education in 2011 on his Veritasium YouTube Channel and website. I was a big fan from the start and have shown his Misconceptions About Temperature video to hundreds of teachers at my workshops. One of his recent videos, Risking My Life to Settle a Physics Debate, was very entertaining but I did not pay close attention to it. In it Derek recreates an accomplishment that was originally done by Rick Cavallaro and John Borton. In 2010 they drove their Blackbird vehicle directly downwind faster than the wind ..read more
The Blog of Phyz
3y ago
When the pandemic hit and schools closed down, I was knocked on my backside pretty hard in many ways.
One thing I found I needed to do—and quickly—was to convert my student curriculum documents into Google Docs format so that I could deploy them in Google Classroom. I had virtually no experience in Google Docs or Google Classroom. And I was facing four preps: Physics, AP Physics 1, AP Physics 2, and Conceptual Physics. A considerable mountain of work loomed.
I'm confident that my colleagues handled the transition better than I did. But I did my best. I transformed many of my documents (Apple K ..read more
The Blog of Phyz
3y ago
Just a quick balanced torque puzzle. It's really a test of whether or nor one truly accepts the concept of center of mass.
Nothing exotic going on. The meterstick is uniform. Sufficient information is provided to solve the puzzle. It can be confounding to students.
Teeeeter Totr - HTML export | movie export ..read more
The Blog of Phyz
4y ago
It's probably irresponsible for me to post this wee package that might deliver more questions than answers. Nevertheless ..read more