Why does a raindrop on a window pane show an image of the environment that is turned upside-down? And why does vision go blurry underwater, but is perfectly clear with diving goggles? Our everyday life is rich in optical phenomena. Unfortunately, these phenomena often play a subordinate role in Optics teaching, compared to ray constructions or…

Physics educators keep adding many skill developments to science and engineering students during their education as individuals and groups including critical thinking, conceptual understanding, problem-solving, mathematical implementation, computational implementation, etc. Here, we are discussing how to reach and analyse students' outcomes within…

The net force and net torque exerted by a uniform magnetic field on a rigid current-carrying loop are discussed in all introductory physics textbooks. A notable omission, however, is the discussion of the equilibrium of a deformable current-carrying loop in a uniform magnetic field. In the article, we present such an analysis for the simplest case…

This project produced an online astronomy course based on the free, online OpenStax textbook. When this project was conceived, about a year before the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors had no idea that in a short period of time, most college and university classes would be online. This abrupt change in modalities of courses, from traditional,…

Difficulties presented by students on the concept of instantaneous velocity are well known. This is in part due to instantaneous speed being often defined in terms of the notion of mathematical limit, which may not be clear to many students in introductory physics courses. In this work we present a complementary teaching proposal that can help…

The Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) approach to learning and teaching holds as one of its core tenets that students should learn physics by engaging in the same processes through which physicists develop new knowledge. One key skill necessary for this is hypothetico-deductive reasoning. In this study, we explored how the…

This article presents the study of Fourier series experimentally, using the "ExpEYES"-17 kit in a different way. This familiar undergraduate experiment has been performed for teaching online laboratory classes when face-to-face classes were not possible, due to the "COVID"-19 pandemic. We chose parabolic and sawtooth waveforms,…

We consider the operation of the hypothetical mechanical vehicle driven by an engine powered by small rockets introduced by P D Hanstead in the inaugural volume of this journal. Hanstead arrived at three contradictory conclusions regarding the change in velocity should some of the rockets malfunction at a particular time. This thought experiment…

In this paper I explain how I usually introduce the Schrödinger equation during the quantum mechanics course. My preferred method is the chronological one. Since the Schrödinger equation belongs to a special case of wave equations I start the course with introducing the wave equation. The Schrödinger equation is derived with the help of the two…

The use of animations, simulations, and remote lab experiments has taken a new turn during the pandemic. When teaching introductory-level physics courses, the simulations and animations play an important role. Carefully designed simulations assist students visualize real-life situations and help understand complex physics concepts behind them.…

In recent years the realisation that children make decisions and choices about subjects they like in primary school became widely accepted. The role of the primary school teacher as the main ambassador for a subject is therefore crucial in inspiring and enthusing the younger generation towards STEM. However, in most European countries, primary…

Chaotic phenomena are not part of standard curricula, although this subject offers several interesting aspects which can help students better understand basic features of science. A central observation is that even simple physical systems, if chaotic, are unpredictable, just like the weather. We present the principles applied when developing a…

The video of a free-falling object was analysed in Tracker in order to extract the position and time data. On the basis of these data, the velocity, gravitational potential energy, kinetic energy, and the work done by gravity were obtained. These led to a rather simultaneous validation of the conservation law of energy and the work-energy theorem.…

Refraction is a foundational concept within introductory physics. Physics students need a deep understanding of refraction, including Snell's Law, in order to progress towards more complex optics topics such as lenses and images. Unfortunately, many physics students obtain only a superficial understanding of refraction. Although many students can…

Introductory physics students often express fears regarding graphical vector addition. To ameliorate student trepidation of possibly making a mistake when moving the second vector to its new position at the head of the first vector before being added, as is most often advised by physics teachers, an alternative method is detailed here. This subtly…