More MOOC

I recently finished the course "Imagining Other Earths" at Coursera and am currently doing "Greatest Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe" from EdX. Both involve some physics especially the second and are given by experts working in the field who are also good teachers. Neither are that easy but good advanced level Physics students should be able to cope.

The first is wide ranging with exoplanets as the main theme but including the solar system, star formation and astrobiology along the way. There are good video lectures and assignments requiring mostly writings short reports. Physics includes such things as inverse square law and Stephan's Law.

The second is more focused on astrophysics and cosmology with more short but good lectures and many short questions and assignments requiring calculations or estimation. More work.
Both have proved very worthwhile and a great learning experience. Recommended.

Some Physics MOOC courses

There are now quite a few such courses which look really useful for high school and university students. Here are a just few I noted below at random. I have not done any but may be a reader has and can comment. Coursera had many (35 matching PHYSICS) and EdX even more (95 matching PHYSICS). Reviewing so many is beyond me!

Coursera
Introductory Physics I with Laboratory - "Explore motion in the real world using modern tools and techniques (video capture and analysis, computer modeling) guided by fundamental physics principles."

Energy and the Earth - "Learn how all energy systems depend on the finite resources of the Earth, and how this relationship can provide a unique “big picture” perspective on energy supply."

Introduction to Electronics - "This course introduces students to the basic components of electronics: diodes, transistors, and op amps. It covers the basic operation and some common applications."

Introduction to Thermodynamics: Transferring Energy from Here to There - "In this course, you will learn how to characterize the energy state of a system and the mechanisms for transferring energy from one system to another. These are the tools necessary to understand stationary and transportation power systems from small scale, like batteries, to large scale, like nuclear power plants."

EdX
Preparing for the AP Physics 1 Exam - "This is a challenging course designed to help high school students prepare for the AP* Physics 1 test. The course covers all of the material for the test, supported by videos, simulations, and online labs. Topics include motion, forces, gravitation, energy and momentum, rotation, harmonic motion, and an introduction to electric charge and basic circuits." This seems to be part of a series.

Electronic Interfaces: Bridging the Physical and Digital Worlds - "Learn by doing: analyze, design, and build electronic interfaces between sensors and a micro-controller to build a robot or your own creation in this hands-on lab course."

Time dilation

Further confirmation of special relativity comes in this item at phy.org. A good way of introducing the topic.

"A team of researchers working at the Experimental Storage Ring in Damstadt, Germany have conducted an experiment using ions pushed to 40 percent of the speed of light to verify time dilation to a new level of precision. In their paper published in Physical Review Letters, the team describes how their experiment was conducted and how it allowed them to validate the time dilation prediction to just a few parts per billion."

See also this article at Wikipedia.

Another good physics blog for teachers

The blog Quantum Progress  is a blog by a teacher for teachers. Apart from the main blog see also the other sections. The section 'More than a blog roll' is a review of many other physics teaching blogs - very valuable. I have not had time to read far - too much.

Here are a few posts of particular interest from the main blog:

Intro Physics: Essential Understandings for Energy and Rough Outline

Using smartphone apps to take physics day to the next level

Particle Physics

I came across a video (see right) of a very good talk by Sean Carroll called "Particles, Fields and The Future of Physics". A good general non-mathematical introduction to the subject including some illuminating comments about the Higgs particle. About an hour in length and worth it.

I should say that this is more A-level or university level than high school!

Also worth mentioning here is a short but more technical article on the same topic "The Physics of a New Generation".

Solar storms and power troubles

This post is speculative but worth considering. The physics is interesting a least. Some research in North America on insurance claims for damage to power systems suggests that geomagnetic storms of solar origin which impact the magnetic field surrounding the earth (magnetosphere) are responsible for some disruptions of the electrical power grid.

"In the early hours of the morning of 13 March, 1989, a powerful geomagnetic storm from the Sun hit the Earth, immediately inducing currents in long conductors on the Earth’s surface, such as power and railway lines. "

"... much of this equipment is connected to the low voltage power distribution network. “The claims statistics thus reveal that large-scale geomagnetic variability couples into the low-voltage power distribution network,” they say. That has never been revealed before."

Are we in Guyana vulnerable? We are near the equator which is good but our power lines are above ground.

Issues to consider:
- what are solar storms?
- what is the magnetosphere?
- how do the storms affect the grid?
- what can be done to protect us?

Note also we had a near miss recently according to this report:

"Two years ago, Earth experienced a close shave just as perilous, but most newspapers didn't mention it. The "impactor" was an extreme solar storm, the most powerful in as much as 150+ years."

More resources - TES

Another goldmine of useful resources for teachers from the Times Educational Supplement (TES):

"Free physics resources: physics lesson plans, physics worksheets, physics revision, physics teaching" 

Of course they cover much else besides Physics too.

Learning and gadgets

A NY-based company called Adafruit Industries has some nice offerings.

"Adafruit was founded in 2005 by MIT engineer, Limor "Ladyada" Fried. Her goal was to create the best place online for learning electronics and making the best designed products for makers of all ages and skill levels. ... Adafruit has expanded offerings to include tools, equipment and electronics ... Limor was the first female engineer on the cover of WIRED magazine and was recently awarded Entrepreneur magazine's Entrepreneur of the year."

I will not attempt to review their gadgets but here are a couple of interesting and relevant educational downloads:
Guide to multimeters
Electronics guides

Digging around in their website is recommended.

Why "Ada"? - probable connection here to Ada Lovelace often described as the world's first computer programmer.

The Physics Classroom website

A great resource for teachers.
This site seems to have some of everything a teacher or student might want including teaching resources, questions, labs etc. Too much to describe. Every teacher needs to check it out.
For the US curriculum but that is not a big problem.
Mainly the work of one very dedicated teacher - Tom Henderson of Glenbrook South High School.

Some more Caribbean Physics sites

In a previous post we looked at a couple of interesting sites for teachers. In this post we look at a few more. There are many sites offering tuition of some kind but these are difficult to evaluate and have been omitted for now.

University sites - there are the University of the West Indies Physics Departments at Mona (Jamaica), at St Augustine (Trinidad) and at Cave Hill (Barbados). All are interesting sites to browse around in. There is also the University of Guyana site although there is currently no degree program.

Another interesting item is an article called "Meet 5 world-renowned Caribbean scientists" on Caribbean Current". One is Guyanese (Dr Chang-Yen) and two are physicists. There are of course many more but making a list would be both challenging and contentious.

I also came across this useful physics blog "Science Zone Jamaica".

There are not a lot of Caribbean physics sites but I will keep looking.

CSEC (CXC) Physics syllabus online

The Caribbean Examinations Council has redone their web site and syllabii can now be found online - after a bit of digging. Since my days of teaching CXC Physics ready access to the most recent syllabus has always been less than easy for teachers and students so having them online like other examining authorities is much to their credit - well done CXC!

The Physics syllabus, effective May 2015, can be found here along with other subjects.

Also of note are the study guides which look really useful, available through publisher Oxford University Press. The Physics study guide is here.

Is the caloric theory of heat true?

This theory is part of the CXC CSEC Physics and is used to illustrate the scientific method. This article gives a useful view of the topic and the nature of scientific theories. Here is a short extract:

"...in the late 1700s there was a theory of heat known as caloric. The basic idea of caloric was that it was a fluid that existed within materials. This fluid was self-repellant, meaning it would try to spread out as evenly as possible. We couldn't observe this fluid directly, but the more caloric a material has the greater its temperature.
...
The basic assumption of a 'heat fluid' doesn't match reality, but the model makes predictions that are correct. In fact the caloric model works as well today as it did in the late 1700s. We don't use it anymore because we have newer models that work better. Kinetic theory makes all the predictions caloric does and more. Kinetic theory even explains how the thermal energy of a material can be approximated as a fluid."