Benjamin Barris

This is an introduction that could be used during the first day or two of a physics class to let the students know what physics is and what it covers. It is a set of PowerPoint slides, most of which can be used by themselves; however, most of the slides work better with student interaction and as demonstrations. The Script for the slides provides a list of simple items that you can use with the slides to get the students involved. Give yourself some time to collect the items.

In this lab, students predict where they need to place a 50 g mass to balance a meter stick that has a pivot point at the 30 cm mark with various masses as a counterbalance. The students then verify their predictions. This is essentially the same calculations a pilot will do to make sure their plane is loaded correctly.