I have assembled and posted several web video based lessons to The Lessons of Phyz at Teachers Pay Teachers.
1. Dodge Nitro Jump
This activity engages students with a practical problem. A motorist is trying to revive his broken-down car. A second motorist offers assistance. When a jump-start is arranged, things take an unexpected turn in the parking lot at Beachs. An understanding of algebraic kinematics is required here. Certainly appropriate for AP Physics 1.
2. Tavurvur Erupts!
This activity engages students with a dramatic video that captures the initial moments of a volcanic eruption. An adiabatic expansion cloud appears and disappears, a shock wave shocks observers capturing the video, and huge boulders trace graceful arc through the air, taking many seconds to eventually crash back into the ocean. Careful analysis of the video and knowledge of physics, and the use of PhET's Flash-based "Projectile Motion" sim allows students to determine the distance to the volcano and the launch speed of those boulders. How safe were the people filming the eruption?
Add this to your mix of classroom demonstrations and lab activities to thoroughly teach the topic at hand. I developed this activity for use with my own students.
3. Inertia
This activity engages students with a few popular inertia related videos found on YouTube. Video addresses are given in the document. Since such addresses can sometimes go bad, search terms are used as titles. Examples here include "Shopping Cart Fail," "Unloading Bamboo Like a Boss," "Car Bowling Fail," and "BMW Tablecloth Trick XXXL". A Mythbusters video is also employed, as is a hilarious clip from a pair of charming German child actors.
4. Car Crash Safety
This activity engages students with Griff Jones' classic, Understsanding Car Crashes: It's Basic Physics. I use this as a review of mechanics. The activity then goes on to have students find the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's rating of vehicles they drive or are passengers in. Or aspire to own. The activity finishes with a pair or head-on collision tests showing that vehicle safety regulations have demonstrable, positive effects on vehicle design. Students are very interested in cars, so they find this activity very engaging.
5. Rolling Through Roundabouts in a Reliant Robin
This activity engages students with an amusing vignette from Britain's Top Gear automobile-themed program. It addresses a considerable design flaw in the three-wheeled Reliant Robin automobile. As is customary on Top Gear, the flaw is highlighted mercilessly, hilariously, and a solution is implemented. The activity is even more fun when the optional background research is done.
6. Backyard Water Slide
This activity engages students with a practical problem. A video shows a backyard water slide enthusiast who slides down a formidable incline that bends into a jump. The enthusiast overshoots the intended landing point. Onlookers burst into laughter. Students work through the physics of why things turned out as they did, even if reasonable precautions were taken. An understanding of rotational kinetic energy in rolling is required here. Appropriate for AP Physics 1.
7. Victoria Phyz Falls
This activity engages students fairly deeply with a thrill-seeking stunt I performed when I visited Victoria Falls on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe in 2014. Bungee jumping is an activity rich with physics. And this jump, filmed at the Victoria Falls Bridge, does not disappoint. Six pages of analysis interrogate the mechanics of the jump quite thoroughly. Multiple representations are implemented. An understanding of harmonic motion and Hooke's Law is required here. Appropriate for AP Physics 1.
8. Color Mixing
This activity engages students with two videos that relate to color mixing. One from Science Friday shows the amazing camouflage capabilities of cephalopods via biological pixels called chromatophores. The other from the Royal Institution tells the story of how the brain and the receptors in our eyes "invent" magenta.
9. Polarized + Blue
This activity engages students with two videos: Physics Girl explores optical polarization in "Only Some Humans Can See This Type of Light" and KQED goes for a deep dive into on structural color in "Magnificent Blue".
And I'm tinkering with the notion of a bundle, hence: YouTube Physics BUNDLE. All nine lessons at a discount.
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