Physics Meets Art in the General Education Core

Marta L. Dark and Derrick J. Hylton; Journal of College Science Teaching, 2018, (47) 3.

If you take the Physics and the Arts course at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, you will be exposed to many applications of a traditional physics class as they apply to various areas in the arts. Light, color, sound, gravity, equilibrium, and space time are some of the topics that are explored. Students explore the topics with a guided inquiry approach. At the end of the course, students create artwork that illustrates a physical concept. Students use a Go Direct® SpectroVis® Plus Spectrophotometer and Logger Pro™ 3 software while they study aspects of color and light.

Enhancing a Scientific Inquiry Lesson Through Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning

Kathleen Koenig, Janet Mannheimer Zydney, Doug Behr, and Lei Bao; Science Scope, September, 2017.

In this guided inquiry activity, students learn about energy transformations as they apply to renewable energy. Students use the KidWind Basic Wind Experiment Kit to design windmill turbines that result in the highest energy output. The students research about how windmill blades work, and brainstorm which designs are most likely to produce the highest output. Students are expected to be able to identify controls, independent variables, and dependent variables. They also demonstrate how they control those variables in their designs. They develop prototypes that they test with a box fan. After initial tests, they modify their design to improve energy output. This project is closely linked to NGSS and CAST standards.

Where Does The Energy Go?

Marta R. Stoeckel (Tartan High School, Oakdale, MN); The Science Teacher, Vol. 85, No. 1, January, 2018.

This article explains how to use evidence-based reasoning to study the bounce of a ball. It is linked to NGSS standards and the authors use Logger Pro™ 3 video analysis to plot a ball’s position.

Burst Mode Composite Photography for Dynamic Physics Demonstrations

James Lincoln; The Physics Teacher, May, 2018.

Many digital cameras, and even camera phones, have “burst mode.” This allows the cameras to take a series of photos in rapid succession. The author explains how to take and composite these photos, which results in one image showing the photos overlaid. If a moving object is in the scene, you can use our photo analysis to get distance, velocity, and acceleration data of that image.