Accuracy

How thick is the book? The students got out their rulers with vastly different answers then they tried the callipers and micrometers to get a better value - looking at accuracy and significant figures that someone can read to and why you might need it. #iteachphysics

Exam Questions

 Its that time of year to practise exam technique to improve the answers, structuring those long 6 mark GCSE questions. #Iteachphysics

Titrations

 Attempting Titrations and titration calculations. I like using Phenolphthalein because I can see the colour change whereas I can't see the colour change using Methyl Orange due to colour blindness. #iteachchemistry

Fresnel Lens

 Looking into how a Fresnel lens works. How do the ridges manage to magnify and give a clear image? #iteachphysics

Making a Salt for an Acid and Base

Copper Sulfate  creation with the water bath for improved safety. Using the water bath stops the students heating the acid up too much and reduces the hazards.

 

Refraction

 Using a @pascoscientific light source in daylight to do a refraction experiment. It was bright enough to work and work well.

Water Purification

Taking dirty pond water and getting out crystal clean water ready to be chlorinated to be safe to drink. The Students set up up a range of different filters in the correct order to get out as much fresh water as possible.

Bett 2022

 Visited the Bett show today. Largely disappointed. only about 1/4 of the exhibitors. Normally I come back with want this or that - not this time. Not that surprising due to circumstances.

Umbrella Drop

 Doing the umbrella drop experiment. Two identical umbella's, fall at the same time, but if one is opened ...

Bernoulli's Principle

 Bernoulli's Principle Faster air = lower pressure. Looking at everything from fun items to planes flying and wind and air pressure. #iteachphysics

Spectrometer with Fibre optic scope

 One of the problems of the students using a spectroscope to observed the emission lines is that they usually can't see them, but using the @pasco spectrometer I can put the image on the board and we can calculate the limes easily

A Far Infrared Picture

 My Phone with a FLIR attachment allows me to take and show heat pictures to the students, showing the shadow of a hand print on a table of how much heat the white board gives out.

Faradays ice Pail

 More fun with the Van De Graaff Generator this time with Faradays ice Pail #iteachphysics

Black Light

 

Using a UV light to show up the invisible parts of bank notes enthused the students some claiming they hadn't seen a £50 note before and seeing that it was genuine. I was glad all the notes we looked at were genuine.

electrical conductivity

Busy day today with lots of experiments including using the @pascoscientific electrical conductivity meter to look at different salts and how their conductivity varied. Students thought best part was using the vortex mixer.

The Van de Graaff Generator and a Ping Pong Ball

The graphite covered ping pong ball moving charge from one sphere to another and making the little hair I have stand on end. The ping pong ball acts as a charge carrier allow the Van de Graaff generator to discharge, but the sudden discharge has a lot of force behind it, launching the ping pong ball away towards the smaller dome. #iteachphysics

Polarising lenses

Using polarising lenses to see the effect on light and effect that some solutions have on the light passing through. #iteachphysics

Diffraction of light through two pencils

Looking at a vertical edge and a horizontal edge through the gap of two pencils to observe the diffraction on light. The pencils are straight but they look bent in places as the light is diffracted #iteachphysics

Looking at Oil and Water refracting a pencil

 Looking at Oil and Water refracting a pencil and getting the students to work out the refractive indices. #iteachphysics

Vortex Mixer with food tests

I discovered that using the vortex mixer in doing food tests made a terrific difference, getting the food to dissolve in water to get much better test results.
 

Bernoulli Principle

 Blowing down the funnel holds the ping pong ball in the neck of the funnel - counter intuitive 

Magnetic fields and wires

Using a plotting compass to detect the magnetic field around a wire. Many of the students think this is some sort of trick then we looked at the problems with mains and computer cables and interference

 

Flying Cake tins

 A demonstration of Electrostatic charges repelling like charges caused by a Van de Graaff Generator. This causes the aluminium cake tins to fly away from each other and from the van de Graaff generator.

Ionic Bonds

Ionic bonds with dot and cross diagrams are hard to visualise. Using these card models made with a Scan n cut machine, the students seem to grasp the idea better. The real problem is to sort out a better Sulfate and Nitrate groups.

Lego EV3 to determine acceleration due to gravity

We have been using this Lego technics setup to determine the acceleration due to gravity and getting 9.8 m/s/s consistently. The students had to do the programming themselves from the formula which made it a bit harder.

Gas Stoves leak Methane when not in use

It’s widely known that when methane is transported in pipes and it leaks the new study has found that cookers leak methane even when they’re not being used. But it is a worry because methane is 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Methane makes up about 90% of natural gas which is used in our homes for heating and cooking purposes. This recent study shows that even when heaters and cookers are turned off methane leaks. Considering the amount of time a cooker is used we can see that more than 75% of this leakage occurs when the cooker is turned off. Ventilation can help the kitchen but it doesn’t help the climate impacts of this Greenhouse gas and the results of burning methane. The only way to do this is to cook on electric from a renewable source.

Projectiles

Doing some Physics revision, and this naturally came up,  looking at how to determine g, projectiles, their range and time of flight. Some excellent ideas from the students on how to stop the shelling.

Using the Ultrasonic sensor to get displacement and velocity Time graphs

 Using the Pasco wireless motion sensor the students acted as a human trolley walking away from the sensor stopping and then returning. Then before we looked at the velocity time graph they had to draw what the graph would look like.

Centre of Mass

 Looking at a broom to find the centre of mass. Its a simple trick to do. Hold out the broom horizontally balanced on two fingers. Move the hands together slowly and often you find one hand moves and the other doesn't when the hands meet - that'
s the centre of mass.

We find the centre of mass to help balance things like getting a picture straight on a wall and we use this idea of centre of mass to stop things blowing over because they are "top heavy".

Van de Graaff generator

Using the Van de Graaff generator is probably one of the most iconic experiments in Physics. Had a lot of fun playing with this and explaining what and why it is happening.

Waves and their properties

 Looking at moving a Ping pong ball using sound waves from one tuning fork on one resonance box to another.

Centre of Mass

Now the students know why I have a hanging basket hanging in my classroom. They walk under it every day and never say anything until we do Centre of mass.

Osmosis

 Looking at the properties of Visking Tubing, The students looked at how it can be used in dialysis using counter flow theory and designing their own dialysis machines.

Shaking Beads

Shaking some beads with a Pasco Wireless Thermometer and showing that the temperature rises with vigorous shaking as show on the Capstone display. This gave the students immediate feedback to help them see what is going on and explain some laws of thermodynamics.

Electric and magnetic fields

 

Looking at the effects of an electric current flowing in a solenoid on a compass.  The A level students are learning about the similarities and differences in electric and magnetic fields, plotting the magnetic fields and using probes to get actual data on this.

Pasco lens for the Demo Eye

The Pasco Demo Eye has a "real" style eye which allows by the addition or removal of water which makes the lens get fatter or thinner in a similar way to the ciliary muscles pull on the lens in an animal eye. Great for Biology and Physics #iteachphysics