SNL "Posters" - Marcello Hernández was cheated

"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) for the benefit of my #ITeachPhysics colleagues. Dan Burns (@kilroy22) quickly noticed that Marcello actually got the correct answer on the most difficult question of the three shown, Question 3.

The recoil height depends on the ball's recoil speed. Conservation of momentum for a perfectly elastic head-on collision with a twice-as-massive body is 1/3 of the impact speed. With 1/3 the impact speed, conservation of energy reveals the ball will rise 1/9 the launch height: 1/9 h. Marcello's answer is correct.

That made me take a look at Question 2. The road must exert a forward force to match the force of air resistance while also exerting a centripetal force equal to mv²/r. Taken together, the forward force and radially inward force result in F(B). Marcello's answer is correct on that one, too.

Dan and I dismissed Question 1 as "not even wrong" since it's not even a physics question. It's a pure math question involving unit conversions. Invoking Avogadro's number in a physics exam is distasteful. 

If we allow this faux pas, 1/12 of Avogadro's number is 5 × 10²². Convert that from seconds to hours by dividing it by 3600 (the number of seconds in an hour). Convert that to days by dividing by 24. Convert that to the never-used-in-a-physics-class unit of weeks by dividing by 7. That's 8.26 × 10¹⁶ weeks. Not an option. So divide that by 52 to convert it to years. 1.59 × 10¹⁵. Once again, Marcello's answer is correct.

It's picking nits to complain that the formatting of Question 1's answer options don't match those of Questions 2 and 3. Or that X was used instead of the correct symbol, ×.

Marcello aced this exam. Kudos to the talking posters. And who is Marcello's physics instructor?

PSSC Film Archive posted on Reddit

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 referenced in the Berkeley Physics Course, of which the 2nd book is the well renowned Electricity and Magnetism by Edward M. Purcell.

While dated, the films are still educational and can bring some insight in various physical observations and phenomena. I personally like the Frames of Reference film.

Unfortunately I could not find all of the films, thus the gaps. If you know other ones, please leave a comment. On the Internet Archive one can also find Italian dubbed versions. [u/SchoggiToeff on Reddit r/Physics.]

Impressive work! And a great way to while away an afternoon, checking out these old classics. Clips from many of these were restored and digitized around 1990 and released as Ztek's Physics: Cinema Classics (P:CC). P:CC included clips from a host of other sources, too. It appears that project has gone dormant. I had P:CC on LaserDisc, and then on DVD, when I was still in the classroom.

Here's one of the classic treasures you can find on the Reddit list. A popular favorite among physics instructors of a certain age.

Chicago’s Most Haunted - Undead Edition

When I came across a credulous local TV affiliate news item in 2006, I immediately turned it into a blog post. But the Internet is ephemeral, and sometimes I like to solidify a lesson idea.

The original videoclip has long since disappeared from the web. And I fleshed out my lesson architecture to maximize efficacy.

The bit that aired on Chicago’s CBS affiliate, and it was … disappointing. My lesson amplifies the weaknesses credulously glossed over in the puff piece.

I found it to be a worthwhile Halloween-adjacent classroom activity. Watch the segment and see if it doesn't raise your skeptical spider senses. The classroom discussion was always great fun. Many high school students have pretty good BS detectors, and the written assignment gives them permission to tear this segment apart. 

The video is low-resolution but usable: Chicago’s Most Haunted (mp4) 

[I download any video I intend to use in class]

The student document can be found here: Word | PDF

Amusing notes:

• What is the licensure process required to claim the title of "psychic detective"? Extensive coursework? Rigorous field training? Grueling examination? No. Just calling yourself a psychic detective.

• What would it look like it you took a flash photograph at night when snow flurries were about?

• Where do stagehands smoke if they work in a non-smoking theater? What would it look like if you took a flash photo near those smokers there at night?

Actor, Ken Melvoin-Berg, operated "Weird Chicago" tours at the time of this segment's airing. Would he have any reason whatsoever to be less than honest about sensing ghosts on location?

I visited that alley years after this aired. I'd hoped to exorcise the ghost in the bricks with a wire brush and a bit of soap and water. Somebody had beaten me to it.

Is a tape measure a constant force spring?

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 measure and used it to pull up on the scale. The force was somewhat constant, but not as steady as I would like. A force probe would have been handy to average many data points and see the force graphically.

Perhaps it would be simpler to measure acceleration, rather than measuring force directly. We could replicate the original video. But what about friction? I've also noticed that tape measures sometimes stick when used in this position. What if we pulled a cart of known mass and analyzed the video? The toy cars at my disposal were all too light—or had too much friction—to provide a motion that was slow enough and consistent enough to satisfyingly measure with the tools on hand.

But there it was staring me in the face: the air hockey table. I put the tape measure on its side, so that the weight of the extended tape doesn't cause it to rub as much against the tape (tape retracts more smoothly). Lego base plate floats beautifully on table. A few Lego bricks are placed on one end of the plate to hold the hook of the tape measure during retraction.  

Tangled Up With You

A theoretical physicist walks into a bar. Specifically, Jim Al-Khalili walks into a recreation of a in 1920s speakeasy where a prohibition-era band is performing. It's a scene from The Secrets of Quantum Physics, episode 1: "Einstein's Nightmare" in which quantum entanglement is the theme. While Al-Khalili lists a few details to chronicle the zeitgeist while enjoying a beverage from his table, the club's chanteuse croons lamentingly of a love she cannot leave.

But careful observers quickly realize this is no ordinary torch song. It's infused with subtle physics cues. I appreciate the production team going the extra mile to create a gem that might be lost on many viewers. So after watching the episode, I hit the Internet to track down the details. 

Enjoy the fruits of my post-viewing web quest:

Tangled Up With You by Eliza's Uncertainty

I found lyrics to Nick Goodman's ditty online. They had a few errors, so here's my corrected accounting. 

Tangled Up With You

You got a heart but there's no way of knowing

Can see where you are but can't see where you are going

And I'm stuck here still

I'm tangled up with you

I know I deserve you

I know you're my savior

But when I observe you

You change your behavior

So I'm stuck here still

I'm tangled up with you

This whole world can be...

So uncertain

But you can bet that I'll still be hurting

When you say our wedding vows to somebody else

Well I've seen some things

I've been around

But darling there ain’t a finer thing that I've found

I'll always be so tangled up with you

I'll always be so tangled up with you

Eliza's Uncertainty - Voice: Eliza Shea, Bass: Misha Mullov-Abbado, Clarinet: Anthony Friend, Trombone: Vij Prakash, Guitar/Composition: Nick Goodwin

And I did manage to craft a question set for The Secrets of Quantum Physics. Episode 1, "Einstein's Nightmare," gets us up to speed on quantum entanglement ("spooky action at a distance"). Episode 2, "Let There Be Life," takes us into the nascent world of quantum biology. Many people might not even know quantum biology is a thing.

Polarized Black Hole Image

It's probably irresponsible for me to post this wee package that might deliver more questions than answers. Nevertheless.

RT;DL Things That Go Bump!

Which involves more force: stopping or bouncing? Let's demonstrate.

I inherited a stop/bounce dart when I arrived at my school in 1986. You arrange the dart as a pendulum and swing it into a wood block. Back in those days, you ran the unadorned nail point into the block for the stop, and attached a rubber stopped to the nail point for the bounce.

Since then, the advent of "happy" and "sad" balls improved this demo. And happy/sad pendula/mallets have been commercially available (help me out with a link if you know one).

Arrange the dart so that it barely knocks over the block using the happy ball on the tip. Then switch to the sad ball and allow for predictions and arguments. Then proceed with the reveal.

Things That Go "Bump" [Virtual Demonstration] at Teachers Pay Teachers

RT;DL Inertia in Action

[RT;DL is remote teaching; distance learning. Where we show our attempts to bring extant lessons into the COVID-19 era.]

In the old days of face-to-face, in-class teaching, we did a station lab activity involving inertia experiences. It was called "Inertia in Action."

I retooled it into a video-based demo in which small groups could view segments, discuss prompts, and record their ideas on a Google Doc. It may not be your cuppa. But it works for me, given the circumstances. 

Inertia in Action [Virtual Demonstration] at Teachers Pay Teachers

Includes

Student document (Google Docs file that lives on Google Drive)

Observations presentation (link embedded in student document)

Answer key

Here's the presentation. It makes more sense with the prompts in the student document.

https://phyz.org/phyz/BOP/2-NEWTON/inertia/#0

Some students had trouble with the HTML presentation, so I exported it as a video. Again, intended for use with the student document. 

https://youtu.be/9QJ6MphQ80A

Physics with Dianna

Learn physics from Physics Girl, Dianna Cowern. 

If you really want to lecture over Zoom this year, godspeed. If you'd rather do ... anything else with your synchronous time, let Dianna nail down the basics for you. Feel free to supplement to your heart's content. But I'm confident Dianna can handle intro exposition more effectively than I can. This is what she does.

Dianna's Intro Physics Class: Trailer - Physics 101, AP Physics 1 Review with Physics Girl

Never taken physics before? Want to learn the basics of physics? Need an AP Physics 1 review before the exam? This course is for you!
In this class we will cover these topics:
1D Motion
Free Fall
2D Motion
Newton’s Laws
Free Body Diagrams
Friction
Circular Motion
Gravity & Orbits
Energy & Work
Energy Conservation
Power
Momentum
Impulse
Collisions
Rotation
Angular Momentum
Simple Harmonic Oscillations
Waves
Sound
Electric Charge
DC Circuits

The Lessons of Phyz September 2020 update

Google Docs, Freebies, and Inadvisable Discounts

When the pandemic closed the schools, I scrambled like most teachers. Our worlds had been thrown upside down and there was an expectation that we'd simply "throw our lessons online," hold classes on Zoom, create YouTube channels of our lessons, etc., and leverage the best among the countless sophisticated online platforms intended to allow our instructional visions to flourish while engage students completely. 

Yeah...no.

More like an old desert-dweller suddenly cast into a roiling ocean while helicopters flew by and dropped materials that, when properly constructed, would make a nice boat. Or... we were expected to build the plane while it was in flight.

In any case, I found that the simple task of assigning a video for students to watch while answering questions was suddenly a challenge. Things worked better if the question sets were in Google Docs format. I could easily assign them and grade them (if need be) in Google Classroom. Many had been in PDF format: not edit-friendly for student work.

So I began the tedious task of transforming my video question sets from their PDF or Word formats to Google Docs. When I finished the ones I was in immediate need to use, I worked on all the others I had posted at The Lessons of Phyz, my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

So here's what's available—an available in Google Docs format, most sold separately or in bundles (at an inadvisable discount).

The Mechanical Universe (All 52 episodes)

The Mechanical Universe High School Adaptations (All 28 Episodes)

Conceptual Physics Alive! with Paul Hewitt (All 34 episodes)

YouTube Physics (quite a variety of topics covered)

Physics Modules (Mechanics, Heat & Temperature, Waves & Light, E&M, and Modern)

Skepticism (we need this so much right now)

Breakthrough: The Ideas That Changed the World (All 6 episodes)

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (Carl Sagan's 1980 series, all 13 episodes)

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (Neil deGrasse Tyson-hosted 2014 series, all 13 episodes)

One Strange Rock (Will Smith-hosts, great for NGSS "The Living World" biology, all 10 episodes)

Our Planet (Think Planet Earth, but with an edge, all 8 episodes)

How Earth Made Us / How the Earth Changed History (Excellent BBC series, all 5 episodes)

Earth Science (Mapping, Atmosphere, Water, Weather, Human Impact, Geology, Solar System, Galaxies)

Pandemic: How to Stop an Outbreak (2020 Netflix series, all 6 episodes)

Two dozen resources are free of charge. Bundles are often discounted so heavily that I get a warning from TPT that I've gone too far. If your school has licensed TPT School Access, then I suppose all the resources are free for you.

Not long into the pandemic, TPT created a method for converting PDFs into Google Docs. By the time it was available to sellers, I was already too deep into the pain-staking process of converting them myself by hand. Well, by computer, but you know what I mean. So I just plowed through into the summer until everything in my store was converted.

I hope you find something that can help you this year and beyond.

Kinetic Karnival now on YouTube

Here's a post from 2009. Updated as I've added the videos to my YouTube channel. I downloaded them from Jearl Walker's MySpace page, where they were originally posted.

All six 30-minute episodes of Jearl Walker's classic television series, the Emmy-winning Kinetic Karnival, are available online at Walker's MySpace page. [Update: I can't access them on MySpace anymore, even in Chrome.] I recommend watching them before showing them in class, although I'm sure you'd do that anyway. There are a few brief moments that modern educators might find objectionable. Most of us find ways to work around such moments, but it's always best to be aware.

I developed video question sets for episodes 1, 2, 3, and 5. Students answer them while the video is in progress. They're up as PDFs in The Book of Phyz.

Here's a one-stop collection of Kinetic Karnival links for your convenience. If you like question sets matched to science videos, The Lessons of Phyz is the place for you.

1. Forces and Collisions [impact time and contact area]
In this episode, Jearl proves his virility and masculinity by chopping concrete bricks with his bare hands and volunteering as the meat for a “nail sandwich.”

Kinetic Karnival - Forces and Collisions - Question Set - Key

 

2. Rotation [circular motion and conservation of angular momentum]
I show this one in two distinct segments (one in my Physics 1 course, the other in AP Physics 2). The first third is devoted to circular motion. The second two-thirds is devoted to angular momentum. Do I dislike the blending of these distinct topics? Yes. Do I have the talent and ability to produce my own series? Not so much. In any case, this episode features Jearl in a swim suit!

Kinetic Karnival - Rotation
Video Question Set 1 (UCM) 

Video Question Set 2 (Angular Momentum) - Key


3. Fluid Flow and Friction
In this episode, Jearl debunks the drain swirl myth from the bathtub, describes an early dating disaster, explains the tablecloth trick, and hangs a spoon from his nose.

Kinetic Karnival - Fluid Flow & Friction - Question Set - Key

4. Viscosity [non-newtonian fluids, quicksand, and corn starch]
Jearl enjoys tinkering with viscous and non-newtonian fluids. He gets stuck in quicksand and jumps feet-first into a pot of unflavored gravy.
Video [Sorry, I didn't grab it when I should have.]

5. The Leidenfrost Effect [heat transfer and phase change]
Arguably the best program of the series, though it does contain a "politically-incorrect/racially insensitive" moment. When Jearl complains about "the problem" with iron-cooked crepes, you might find the mute button on the remote control of your playback system. A few moments of mute will spare you an apologetic discussion afterward. Features the hand into molten lead, liquid nitrogen in the mouth, and firewalking.

Kinetic Karnival - The Leidenfrost Effect - Question Set - Key

6. The Science of Cooking
Jearl prepares a meal for a dinner date with a young lady. Along the way, he describes the physics and chemistry of a variety of dishes. And the date turns out as you might expect.
Video [Sorry, I didn't grab it when I should have.]

My Mechanical Universe Sagrada Família

I've been enjoying moving my Mechanical Universe curriculum out of the classroom and into the realm of YouTube homework this year. Posting the high school adaptations to YouTube and having a one-stop index webpage that links to every episode makes it easy. And they wouldn't be a part of my curriculum if I didn't have question sets to accompany them.

Every once in a while, I prefer to use a full college edition during a unit. So I decided to jump down the rabbit hole and begin developing Lessons of Phyz question sets for the college edition episodes. So far, I've been able to put together 12 sets.

[12/7/19 Update: 17 sets]

So that means there are only 40 35 episodes left to go. And writing a question set for a Mechanical Universe episode is a heavy lift compared to writing them for more straight-forward science documentaries. So I don't foresee completing all 52 episodes any time before 2022.

I have divided the series into six groups that make sense to me. In the event that I complete any of those groups, a TpT bundle will be assembled. When the whole series is completed, a megabundle will be prepared. 2022 will be a great time to be alive! Until then, I'll add question sets as I make them. One at a time. Unhurried.

For now, take a look and see if there's anything you can use before we get to that 2022 paradise, college or high school.

The Mechanical Universe of Phyz page (with links to every episode, college and high school)

Basilica de la Sagrada Família is the famous Barcelona church designed by Antoni Gaudí to be constructed on a 100-year+ timetable. The last true Alan Parsons Project album was all about Gaudí, and the opening track was La Sagrada Faília.

Doggies on a waxed floor

Where will you use it: inertia, friction, centripetal force? I don't think students will mind if you use it for all of those.

Can you stretch it into conservation laws? Of course you can! Low stopping force requires longer stopping time. Impulse/momentum: check. That wee force will need to act across a large distance to change the kinetic energy of those goggies! Work-energy: check.

Want to take it a step further? How did those doggos get up to speed to begin with? Hmmm...

And fear not: it all ends well.

Hat tip to Wendy A. (Rio Phyz ’88). Old physics teacher flex? Why, yes!

Mechanical Universe all episode access page

If you want a single page with easy-to-find links to every episode of The Mechanical Universe, we have something in common.

I made such a page and posted it to my phyz.org domain.

College (half-hour) episode links are on the top table, High School Adaptations are listed on the bottom table. I arranged the episodes into groups that make sense to me. I hope they make sense to you, too.

I use the high school version with question sets in my classes. Links to the question sets on my Teachers Pay Teachers site, The Lessons of Phyz, can also be found on the page.

With all episodes of The Mechanical Universe (college and high school) streaming for free, I'm moving these video presentations away from class time to "YouTube homework."

Since I couldn't find anyone selling or streaming the high school adaptations of The Mechanical Universe, I posted them, myself. I wrote about that in a previous post.

Here's the page: The Mechanical Universe of Phyz.

http://phyz.org/mechanicaluniverse/

The Mechanical Universe High School Adaptations

The original episodes of The Mechanical Universe once streamed from the Annenberg Learner website and were available for purchase there. That changed and it seemed like they would be lost forever. But then CalTech posted them, so it seems all is well.

But the High School Adaptations followed a different path. They were available for purchase for years (VHS and then DVD) from Intelecom. But any and all distribution ceased years ago, and these pared down and reworked videos seem to have been lost to the mists of history. You cannot buy them and you cannot stream them.

So I decided to post them as "unlisted" videos on my YouTube channel. Two copyright claims popped up when I uploaded them. In "Introduction to Waves," someone owns the license to The Marriage of Figaro music that plays in the episode, so that episode is subject to ads that would benefit the license holder. In "Navigating in Space," a minute or so of Voyager Grand Tour animation is owned by the BBC. Inclusion of that minute would block the video from running, so I removed the offending content and tried again. No block; no strike!

Links to all 28 High School Adaptation episodes can be found at the bottom of this page:
The Mechanical Universe of Phyz

And now that they stream, they make for nice YouTube homework assignments! This frees up classroom time for other activities.

I feel awkward posting these videos since they don't really belong to me. I have not been asked by any license-holding stakeholder to cease or desist. At this point, they may be covered by Fair Use. I honestly don't know. It is certainly not my intent to infringe on anyone's copyright.

Here's an old favorite:

The Law of Inertia

Adhesion Cohesion Lens-hesion

The correct reaction here is "I saw that when she posted it" because you subscribed to Physics Girl's YouTube channel ages ago. If not, proceed.

This Weird Straw Effect | EVERYDAY MYSTERIES


This seems to beg for further investigation using different liquids. Cooking oil? Corn syrup?  The interplay of adhesion and cohesion is central here.

It's fun to think about the extremes:

1. How would this have turned out if the liquid had maximum cohesion and minimal adhesion?

2. How would this have turned out if the liquid had minimal cohesion and maximum adhesion?

There are more questions that might be nice, too. If you think of a question (or a liquid), drop it into the comments.

Our Planet (Netflix series)

Sometimes I go somewhere for spring break. This year I went everywhere on our planet.

Our Planet | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix


As described by the producers:

Our Planet is a groundbreaking, four-year collaboration between Netflix, Silverback Films and WWF. It explores the rich natural wonders, iconic species and wildlife spectacles that still remain, and reveals the key issues that urgently threaten their existence. Today, we have become the greatest threat to the health of our planet. 

Our joint mission is to inspire people over the world to understand our planet - and the challenges it faces. If we can truly understand why nature matters to us all, and what we can do to save it, then we can create a future where nature and people thrive. 

It is very BBC Planet Earth-esque in many ways: stunning wildlife photography accompanied by a David Attenborough narration. But in it's storytelling, it does describe human impact. There are times when that impact is beneficial, but more often it is detrimental. Appallingly detrimental.

But no part of the series is "pollution porn". No images of filth being pumped into waterways or oil-covered birds struggling amid the sludge.

By and large it is a celebration of nature as it remains and an assurance that, given the opportunity, the extent to which it can recover. And photography tools and techniques have advanced significantly since Planet Earth was made.

There are disturbing vignettes. The fungus that bursts forth from the corpse of an ant whose dying behavior it commandeered, the successful orca hunt of an outmatched penguin, and "the walrus scene". The walrus scene will likely stay with me for a very long time. It should be noted that the entire eight-episode series is rated TV-G.

I may never have need or cause to direct my own students to watch this series. But others might. It seems very much in line with the NGSS three-course model's "The Living Earth". But I know I'm unwilling to use expository video resources without an accompanying set of questions. For long-form videos such as each episode of Our Planet, a sequence of surface-level questions can keep students focused on the narrative.

So I spent a significant portion of spring break preparing video question sets that teachers could use with students while watching any or all episodes of the series. For me, that requires first screening the episode as a passive audience member. Next I go through the process of watching and listening and pausing while I allow the text of the narration to suggest possible questions.

Fill-in-the-blanks are simple and can be effective. Sometimes. But not when the key word or phrase is something like "Rub' al Khali" or name of any exotic place or organism. Multiple choice can be deployed here, but it's key to develop distractors of such quality that even a clever student would be attracted to a wrong answer if they were not paying attention.

There are occasions in which multi-select checklists are appropriate. Rarely, it is even possible to create a matching sequence.

In any case, I came up with Our Planet (Netflix) Video Question Sets and have posted them to The Lessons of Phyz at Teachers Pay Teachers.

Often the producers of such programs will develop deep and expansive curriculum through which an instructor could make a semester or yearlong course based on the documentary series. And the producers of Our Planet have produced a companion book for the series.

For now, my own classroom interests have never risen to that level of ambition. Not even for The Mechanical Universe. I prefer to incorporate the resources rather than to be incorporated by them.

If you know someone who might want to replace their use of Planet Earth with something a little more environmentally conscious, send them this post. Our planet is stunningly gorgeous, as is Our Planet.

It's a great day to be skeptical!

I've been developing "skepticism in the classroom" resources for quite a while. I've posted a bunch of them to The Lessons off Phyz at Teachers Pay Teachers. I drop them into my curriculum throughput the year, when the moment is right. Sometimes they are assigned as "YouTube Homework".

YouTube Skepticism: Baloney Detection Kit
This activity engages students as they watch a 14-minute video on a so-called "Baloney Detection Kit". It's a structured implementation of Carl Sagan's quote, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and acts as a filter when students are confronted with claims.

YouTube Skepticism: The First Moon Office
This activity compares the science of meteors and apparent weightlessness with how those phenomena are represented in a Federal Express television advertisement.

YouTube Skepticism: Power Balance
Power Balance bracelets burst onto the scene a few years ago and enjoyed explosive success. There were "knock-offs," fakes, and the company gathered so much cash it bough the naming rights to sports and entertainment complex in Sacramento: what had been ARCO Arena became Power Balance Pavilion. The activity brings students through the claims and the tests of those claims. Power Balance has since declared bankruptcy, but similar products (targeted toward baseball players) persist. There will always be such products, I hope my students do not buy them.

YouTube Skepticism: Magnet Boys
This activity allows students to consider several cases of so-called "magnet boys" that swarmed the Internet a few years ago. The cases pose interesting questions, and magician and skeptic, James Randi, has an idea of what might be going on.

YouTube Skepticism: Cell Phone Popcorn
This activity has students observe and investigate a set of viral videos that took YouTube by storm a few years ago: ordinary people were using their cell phones to pop popcorn. The videos leas students into a revealing investigation.

The Secrets of the Psychics
Nova's Secrets of the Psychics. Magician and skeptic, James "The Amazing" Randi, exposes so-called psychics at home and abroad. It's a serious topic, but there are a great many laughs to be had.

Merchants of Doubt
Question set and answer key to accompany Merchants of Doubt (Sony Classic Pictures). This documentary exposes the parallels of the tactics used by the tobacco industry and climate change deniers, among others.

Skepticism Bundle—The Whole Shebang!
All of the above.

More skepticism in the classroom resources can be found at

Skepticism in the Classroom (Dean Baird)

Skepticism in the Classroom (my buddy, Matt Lowry—physics instructor and skeptic extraordinaire)

Magnetoception: can it happen in humans?

When we study magnetism, we learn that certain animals have awareness of magnetic fields and can use it for navigation. Certain birds are known to have magnetite in their skulls. Here's a nice update of recent findings regarding magnetoception in birds.

Humans do not seem to have this capability. But that doesn't mean our brains are entirely oblivious to magnetic fields.

Veritasium's Derek Muller dons a sensor-laden shower cap of science to test his brain's awareness of the magnetic field it's immersed in. Could it be that the brain senses magnetic fields but doesn't share the information with our consciousness? Take a look.

Can Humans Sense Magnetic Fields?

Cheerios and thumbtacks: tribalism in a cereal bowl

What I always love about Jearl Walker's work is that it looks at the world, sees something peculiar, and says "why is that?" And proceeds to investigate.

We often hear, "Everything happens for a reason." What we should also hear is, "And that reason is physics."

So it is with The Cheerios Effect. Watch and learn.

The Cheerios Effect


There's a whole book filled with this kind of serendipity:

The Flying Circus of Physics by Jearl Walker

I highly recommend it.