Innovative Uses of Vernier Technology

In collaboration with researchers from the University of Kentucky, Heidi Anderson, AP Biology teacher at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington, KY, has developed an inquiry-based investigation of heart rate. What makes her approach unique is she studies crayfish. Students connect a Vernier EKG Sensor to leads attached under the dorsal carapace of the…

Subjects: Water Quality

Creating the absorption spectrum of an aqueous sample is easy and fast with the Vernier Spectrometer. The graph below represents the spectral analysis of the four common food dyes. (The color of the line represents the color of the dye.) Students are often surprised to see that yellow dye peaks in the blue wavelengths and…

Subjects: Chemistry

David Drummer, physics teacher at Kutztown Area High School in Kutztown, PA uses a K’NEX® rollercoaster and Vernier 25-g Accelerometer to investigate impulse. His students mount the Accelerometer in a rollercoaster car and roll it down the coaster into a brick barrier. David has his students use the acceleration data and the mass of their…

Subjects: Physics

Michele Perin of St. Louis, Missouri gets pretty creative with her Vernier labs. She doesn’t have a lab for EVERY season yet, but she has written some tasty experiments for Thanksgiving! How Quickly Does Your Potato Cool? Have you ever sat down to a Thanksgiving dinner only to find that the potatoes have gotten cold…

Subjects: Biology

A cute bath product made by Crayola®, called Bathtub Tints, offered us an interesting opportunity to conduct a few simple chemistry activities. The ads that we have seen for this product describe it as effervescent water color tablets. The first three ingredients listed on the label of a container of Bathtub Tints are sodium carbonate,…

Subjects: Chemistry

Eric Koser and his 9th grade physical science students at Mankato West High School in Mankato, Minnesota, had spent a lot of lab time doing experiments studying mass, volume, and density with overflow cans. When the discussion of the density of a person came up, Eric took on the challenge to measure it. Fortunately, one…

Subjects: Chemistry

While preparing to evacuate the Chinquapin School in Highlands, Texas (just east of Houston), physics teacher Brian Lamore had the presence of mind to recognize a unique data-collection opportunity. Brian set up a LabPro and Barometer in his apartment. He ran a length of rubber tubing from the Barometer through an open window. Even though…

Subjects: Physics

Thomas Haff, physics teacher at Issaquah High School in Issaquah, Washington, likes to assign inquiry-based projects to get his students to use what they have learned. The problem presented to students Kevin Bell and Christopher Nield was to determine the amount of force a tennis racket imparts on a tennis ball during an interaction. Haff…

Subjects: Physics

Thermocouples are one of the most common types of temperature sensors. They are inexpensive, rugged, and quite versatile, as they can measure a wide range of temperatures from very low (-250°C) to very high (1700°C) values. Since they can be made from very fine wire, they also allow for very fast response times. In 1821…

Subjects: Chemistry

Students from the University of Akron regularly enter the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Aero Design® Competition. The Aero Design Competition challenges engineering students to conceive, design, fabricate, and test a radio-controlled aircraft that can take off and land while carrying the maximum cargo. This gives students the opportunity to apply the knowledge learned in…

Subjects: Physics