Keith Endsley

Students have difficulty visualizing the addition of vectors. I like to take the class outside, place them at a specific location and then have them all converge on a central location. It happens that our school has a football field with a flagpole at one end that works nicely. This could be adapted easily to any outdoor location. I also provide the students with compasses so they stay on track with the cardinal directions. This could be accomplished with a cell phone and app as well.

This activity serves as a great example of how electrons filling the first few rows if they were to attend a concert "in the round" with seating which is first-come first-served. The two rules they follow are 1) they sit in the closest row first and 2) they don't sit next to someone until they have to. It expand on this idea and then leads the students on a logical progression through making an electron dot diagram and previewing how atoms feel about losing or gaining electrons and how they mi

Students often have difficulty understanding how a paleontologist can reconstruct a skeleton from only a few bone fragments. This activity helps them understand that when you are an "expert" in a field, it is relatively easy to reconstruct the rest of an object from a few small pieces. This activity requires some broken toy pieces to be supplied to students for them to reconstruct the rest of the toy. I have found they really enjoy sharing at the end of the lesson their guess.

This activity helps students think through describing motion and acceleration with positive and negative directions associated.