This paper mainly discusses the application of blending learning in animation teaching. Blending learning is a combination of traditional teaching mode and online teaching mode, which can provide students with more flexible and independent learning methods and improve teachers' teaching quality and teaching effect. This paper analyzes and…

We present a new teaching and outreach activity based around the construction of a three-dimensional chart of isotopes using LEGO® bricks. The activity, "binding blocks", demonstrates nuclear and astrophysical processes through a seven-meter chart of all nuclear isotopes, built from over 26000 LEGO® bricks. It integrates A-Level and GCSE…

The authors provide a dynamic Ferris wheel computer activity that teachers can use as an instructional tool to help students investigate functions. They use a student's work to illustrate how students can use relationships between quantities to further their thinking about functions.

Thermodynamic processes are complex phenomena that can be understood as a set of successive stages. When treating processes, classical thermodynamics (and most particularly, the Gibbsian formulation, predominantly used in chemistry) only pays attention to initial and final states. However, reintroducing the notion of process is absolutely…

Redefining the educational model of science, technology, engineering, and math curriculum (STEM) to also include art to become STEAM (Fournier, 2013; Guyotte, Sochacka, Constantino, Walther, & Kellam, 2014) is a current method to encourage students to actively participate in 21st-century learning (Saxena, 2014). The skills emphasized for…

Teaching the subject of the electron transport chain is one of the most challenging aspects of the chemistry curriculum at the high school level. This article presents an educational program called "Electron Transport Chain" which consists of 14 visual animations including a biochemistry quiz. The program was created in the Adobe Flash…

The topic of sorting algorithms is a pleasant subject of informatics education. Not only is it so because the notion of sorting is well known from our everyday life, but also because as an algorithm task, whether we expect naive or practical solutions, it is easy to define and demonstrate. In my paper I will present some of the possible methods…

Thanks to a slew of new, easy-to-use animation tools, one doesn't have to work at Pixar or DreamWorks to create a summer blockbuster. In fact, it's now a snap for young storytellers to learn the ABC's of animation. And that's bound to make learning a lot more interesting--and much more creative. At Springfield Township High School, in Erdenheim,…

The human eye and its vision problems are often used as an entry subject and attention grabber in the teaching of geometrical optics. While this is a real-life application students can relate to, it is difficult to visualize how the eye forms images by studying the still pictures and drawings in a textbook. How to draw a principal ray diagram or…

We introduce a new open source (free) software package that provides a simple, highly interactive interface for carrying out certain mathematical tasks that are commonly encountered in physics. These tasks include plotting and animating functions, solving systems of coupled algebraic equations, and basic calculus (differentiating and integrating…

The refraction problem, well-known in calculus and physics, continues to reveal new insights. This paper presents a geometric solution in which the trammel of Archimedes plays the prominent role. When properly configured, the trammel generates an ellipse and its family of normal lines. One normal line in particular intersects the boundary…

The way that Taylor polynomials approximate functions can be demonstrated by moving the center point while keeping the degree fixed. These animations are particularly nice when the Taylor polynomials do not intersect and form a nested family. We prove a result that shows when this nesting occurs. The animations can be shown in class or…

Since the formation of atomic bonds is active, the authors sought a way of learning through drama or kinetic activity. To achieve this goal, they developed an activity called Romance of the Atoms. The activity requires students to use computer-animation technology to develop short cartoons that explain atomic classification and bonds. This…

Natural selection and other components of evolutionary theory are known to be particularly challenging concepts for students to understand. To help illustrate these concepts, we developed a simulation model of microevolutionary processes. The model features all the components of Hardy-Weinberg theory, with population size, selection, gene flow,…

This paper presents a game of industrialisation, based on a paper airplane, that mimics real world production ramp-up and blends classical engineering courses together. It is based on a low cost product so that it can be mass produced. The game targets graduate students and practitioners in engineering fields. For students, it offers an experiment…