Quantum science is in the news daily and engages students' interest and curiosity. A fundamental quantum science concept that underpins medical imaging, quantum computing and many future technologies is quantum spin. Quantum spin can explain many physical phenomena that are in the lower secondary school curriculum, such as magnetism and light,…

The mathematical form of the magnetic field due to a current loop, and the fact that it is identical to the electric field due to an electric dipole in the far field, are fundamental to our understanding of electromagnetism. While undergraduate level electromagnetism textbooks usually derive the electric field from an electric dipole, few derive…

This work provides a missing manual needed to understand permanent magnets (also known as "hard" magnets), the only source of "magnetic induction field B" (units of teslas), often called the magnetic field, that students are familiar with when they confront magnetic force acting on moving charges. Students see this magnetic…

The question of how the processes around the Faraday generator with its rotating magnet should be interpreted has been controversial since its discovery by Faraday. Does the magnetic field rotate together with the rotating magnet or does it remain stationary? Furthermore, does one only need Faraday's flux law to interpret inductive processes, or…

In this work, we will describe a Peer Project Learning assignment focused on the STEM project-based learning activities where students build a custom board game with a series of constraints that guide them to learn (and later teach) about the main concepts of an electromagnetism physics course for undergraduate students.

Basic science courses, such as physics, are fundamental to precollege studies. For instance, in different engineering applications, electricity and magnetism require comprehending subjects such as electrical circuits and power electronics. However, abstract concepts such as electric or magnetic fields are often difficult to explain without visual…

A significant goal when teaching at the secondary education level is to present the generality of the procedures that are being used to describe a wide range of different physical phenomena. However, this approach is abandoned by physics instructors in many cases since the general mathematical background needed to present the above generality is…

To help engage non-physics majors in a General Physics II (Electricity & Magnetism) course at the University of Indianapolis, students used their smartphones to detect magnetic fields on campus in a semester-long data collection project. This paper discusses details about the design of the project, previous studies that utilize smartphones for…

Magnets are familiar objects and yet magnetism as a concept remains challenging. A casual search of YouTube for magnets reveals a staggering number of videos, interesting demos involving electric and permanent magnets, and entire channels devoted to various uses for magnets. It is far more difficult to find descriptions that can help students…

In this article, we describe how the Gaussian Gun, a simple configuration of magnets and ball bearings, can be leveraged to connect ideas from physics to representations and ideas that are central to chemistry and challenging for students to learn. In particular, we show how the Gaussian Gun, an arrangement of ball bearings and magnets, models…

The topic of electric and magnetic fields is fundamental to the physics curriculum in both high school and college. The applied aspect of this topic has triggered the rapid development of modern technology in this era. This paper reported a remote data acquisition system developed for experiments with magnetic fields by coils to support…

Many students (and adults) do not understand a basic tenet of energy literacy: how electricity is produced. They do not know how coal or other fossil fuels are used to make electricity, nor do they understand how nuclear power, hydroelectric power, and wind power work. The author developed a series of lessons to help students understand how…

Here we present an inexpensive proposal to experimentally study Faraday's law of induction. The experiment uses low-cost materials, a computer with a sound card and a smartphone, both running free software. A value proportional to the induced electromotive force is measured with the computer's sound card and the data related to the magnetic field…

This work deals with the experimental demonstration of coupled oscillators using simple tools in the form of mechanical coupled pendulums, magnetically coupled elastic strings or electromagnetic oscillators. For the evaluation of results the data logger Lab Quest Vernier and video analysis in the Tracker program were used. In the first part of…

This paper focuses on the use of software developed by the authors that allows the visualization of the motion of a charged particle under the influence of magnetic and electric fields in 3D, at a level suitable for introductory physics courses. The software offers the possibility of studying a great number of physical situations that can…