Widget Physics

When you don't find many examples online of other people's results- you've got an interesting experiment going! I didn't come up with the basic idea behind this experiment (that pencil lines on paper are conductive) but estimating how thick those lines are by the means described in this document is entirely my own work. This is a fairly advanced experiment for students who have been exposed to the resistivity equation. It's structured in a step-by-step manner, starting with determining the r

Here's a question: when you rub a balloon on your hair and it gets all static-y, how many electrons did you rub off your hair onto the balloon? I love experiments that start with a question that defies casual analysis! This essentially an advanced Coulomb's Law experiment, in which two charged balloons repel each other with a force that can be estimated from the geometry of the setup AND a well-drawn Free-body diagram! Starting with the weight of a balloon, and working your way through the

As I'm sure you will agree: the Photoelectric Effect is not the easiest thing to explain! I've been laboring over this set of Google Slides for probably half a dozen years, and I believe I've created a resource that is about as effective as possible in explaining this very clever and important experiment. Numerous step-by-step animations ask key questions and provide hints. Part 1 outlines the experiment itself (including the observations that motivated it) and Part 2 covers the Photoelec

Here's another crazy question* that I've come up with, as well as my own clever (?) way of answering it! If you look online you'll find very few examples of this question being answered experimentally, and (AFAIK) not in this way. My version is essentially an advanced kinematics/dynamics + Earth Science approach, and will give students an excellent opportunity to practice experimental design. That's because the information that is needed to answer the question is: the terminal velocity an

This is an experiment where - I kid you not- I have had students gasp audibly or say something like "Holy !$( & *" on completing it! The question is simple: how long does it take for the ISS to orbit the Earth once? Student guesses will probably range from days to years...but the answer (~90 minutes) is always at least a bit surprising. I love an experiment where it's pretty unlikely to come up with an answer by casual analysis! The setup could not be simpler: all you need is a length of

My take on an extremely important experiment in which students will distinguish between the only two possible kinds of motion: acellerated and constant velocity. All your students need to complete this classic experiment is a ramp, a ball, and a timing device- but if that sounds simple, don't worry, my version has them drawing tangent lines to position vs. time graphs! The lab includes teaching notes, sample data and is of course fully editable.

My take on a classic experiment that will give your students some data with which to understand a familiar but complicated force: friction. We use a Vernier Force Sensor, but you could pull a wooden 'sled' with a spring scale and still get decent results. (The most fun part for you will be coming up with a bunch of interesting surfaces for students to pull their sleds across! I took apart an old NordicTrac and got two: the rubber mat that you run on AND the very slippery board that it rolls

This is my take on a classic experiment that my students always get a kick out of! For some reason, high school students seem to enjoy competing- and doing so while finding out what their personal horsepower output is always fun! You'll only need a set of stairs, a meter stick and a stopwatch to carry out this lab. (Optional: weight scale. I usually just trust students who volunteer to participate for an accurate weight.) This lab includes teaching notes, sample data, and is of course fully

Here's my take on Hooke's Law. All your students need to complete this experiment are two springs with different spring constants, something to hang them from, and a meter stick! For extra fun there's Part 2, where students investigate the properties of two springs connected end-to-end, and use Simple Harmonic Motion to find the spring constant of this arrangement. The lab includes teaching notes, sample data, and is of course fully editable.

These are a series of Goolge Slides that offer students a chance to brush up on Nuclear notation. Each Slide presents an element symbol in nuclear notation (where the rest of the information like mass/atomic number are blank), or the reverse. The missing information appears in sequence via animation. It's also an editable template where you can copy/paste a certain element Slide, and add your own personal favorites!

This is a set of Google Slides with numerous clever animations that provide skill-testing questions and hints (with a bonus throwback to Earth Science content!). I often use this and other sets of Slides in place of a video because it touches on only the most important ideas in a very step-by-step manner. When you're in control of the pacing you can really give students a chance to think deeply about the questions, or take a moment to add your own anecdotes / examples / jokes! [Fully editable