Do-it-yourself: centripetal force

This device demonstrates centripetal force. Just hold it vertically and whirl it gently so that the top weight circles around. Speed up the motion and the bottom weight rises as the centripetal force increases.

I used a pair of old keys as weights. Takes a bit of practice but is easy enough.

Materials: drinking straw, sewing thread, two weights. A glass tube or plastic tube should also work instead of the straw.

Do-it-yourself lab equipment

I will be periodically (hopefully once per month) adding ideas for making simple equipment for use in the Physics lab or for demos.

Workshop for Physics teachers

On November 4th NCERD held a one-day Workshop in Georgetown for Physics teachers. The workshop was opened by the Minister of Education who spoke on the issues and need for upgrading of science and mathemetics education and Physics in particular. The Director of NCERD, Mr Goolsaran, also spoke to this theme.

Professor Kunar then used a MIT Physics video by Dr Lewin to show some teaching techniques. This was followed in the afternoon by Physics demonstrations using simple equipment by Prof. Kunar.


The workshop is mentioned in this Kaieteur News article.

Links
Lectures by Dr Lewin

From the other blog

Two items recently posted on my other blog which relate to Physics education:

Intertropical Convergence Zone in September

Education on the rise world-wide

Morning mist

I shot this picture before dawn on the 20th.

Such mist is not common here but I have noticed it several times lately. It indicates that the air was very humid and that rapid cooling occurred overnight - probably because the sky was clear.

Clouds reflect heat, both incoming and outgoing. If the sky is clear at night the ground can lose heat quickly by radiating it to space.

Some Physics video sites

These sites are good sources of videos on basic or advanced Physics. The videos are mainly of demonstrations or labs rather than lectures.

www.onlinecolleges.net/2010/03/03/100-amazing-videos-for-teaching-and-studying-physics/       
100 videos on both basic and advanced topics.

www.animations.physics.unsw.edu.au/
Substantial and organised collection of animations and clips. Many of advanced level.

physics.decapoa.altervista.org/fisica/
A long illustrated listing of Youtube Physics videos.

freescienceonline.blogspot.com/
A blog with many posts with links to Physics videos (and lectures too).

www.freesciencelectures.com/videos/physics/education/1/
A collection of some miscellaneous interesting videos. Basic and advanced.

www.wfu.edu/physics/demolabs/demos/avimov/#Video
A collection of videos done at Wake Forest University. Most are of basic Physics.

Physics practicals help

This web site is a great source of instructions for doing labs. Each lab has a sheet of instructions. A real gold mine!

PracticalPhysics.org

"This website is for teachers of physics, enabling them to share their skills and experience of making experiments work in the classroom."

Some reasons for studying Physics

Here are some web sites I came across while working on the "Why Study Physics" presentation which make the case for studying Physics, giving reasons for doing so.

Why Study Physics? - reasons in support of studying physics


Why study physics and is physics relevant?


Why Study Physics

Why study Physics presentation

Having spent quite some time looking, without success, for a short video (about 10 minutes) to show to high school students in order to motivate them to study Physics, I decided to do something myself. My teenage daughter said it was "Interesting" so I am encouraged!

The presentation is a power point presentation (actually done with Openoffice) and consists of about 30 slides and has the following aims:

• To explain what Physics is
• To awaken an interest in studying Physics
• To look at some exciting new discoveries (nanotech gets a mention)

Download presentation here (ppt) or here (odp) (~1M file).


There is no audio. I hope to use feedback to improve the presentation.


I hope someone who has access to lots of cool video can put together a full video version - may be one exists somewhere - let me know please!

Purpose of this blog

The intent here is to use this blog to support the various Physics teaching and educational activities I have recent become involved with - after being away from Physics teaching for some years.

There is also quite a bit of science content at my other more general blog:  Wondering thoughts