I love a theme park! We had my favourite school trip of the year this week: Physics Trip to Thorpe Park! Last year, when I wasn't in charge, it was just a jolly but this year I was determined to make it educational. We went to the science of roller coasters talk, which was actually very good for a GCSE audience and I thoroughly recommend it to other teachers. I also asked the students to download accelerometers for their phones and take data on the rides. The two accelerometers I suggested were Physics Toolbox Accelerometer for Android and Mobile Science Acceleration for IOS but really this would work on any of them. I exported the acceleration data to excel and then plotted graphs. We then discussed that acceleration is in the same direction as the force they feel (F=ma) and they had to guess the roller coaster. The one above is really good because it has all the sinusoidal sections showing the corkscrews (it's collossus-my favourite!) It's quite difficult to ensure that the pupils held their phone exactly vertical (I strapped mine to my arm with a running band) so it's difficult to look at up and down coasters but it's great at picking out circular motion. Which ride is this one?
0 Comments
Months ago I wrote an article for Physics Education and it has finally been published after a round of peer review and here it is!
AbstractThe link between trigonometry and forces can be a conceptually difficult one for some A-level students. This article describes a simple, practical investigation that students can carry out using three force metres to find the horizontal and vertical components of forces. This is a fantastic opportunity and I thoroughly recommend that other teachers apply for this course. It's a week-long residential course at Brunel University and CERN run by the Goldsmiths' Company. It was a brilliant week of lectures from scientists and professors with a tour of CERN and its tunnels. A must for anyone teaching A Level Physics. It was so awesome. I also thoroughly recommend the pop-up book of CERN to show A Level classes what happens inside a particle accelerator.
|
Apparently Sewis also a teacher and massive e-learning nerd. Archives
October 2017
Categories
All
|