As an introduction to sound and vibration, the authors wanted their first-grade students to plan and conduct their own investigations. In this article, the authors share a series of investigations to help students explore the relationship between sound and vibration. By planning, creating, testing, adapting, and reflecting on the outcomes of the…

Teaching of centripetal force in secondary education is a challenging task because of its central role in the circular and rotational motion. The specific equipment needed for experiments that explore the physical law which governs the centripetal force is usually limited in schools. The experiment presented in this paper, is based on a device…

Students come to class with little understanding about torque, angular velocity, and angular acceleration despite the fact that these physical science concepts are frequently observed. For example, torque occurs when car and bicycle tires rotate, the movement of fishing pole when hooking a fish, and when a person uses a hammer to drive in a nail.…

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) have developed broad prevalence in the American (U.S.) education system over the last decade. Academic, government, and business experts emphasize that attracting K-12-university students to STEM subject matter is crucial for expanding the innovation capacity of the U.S. and preparing citizens for…

Laboratory work in physics has traditionally focused on the verification of facts, theories and laws. In contrast, this article describes how laboratory tasks can be used to promote students understanding about the nature of science and scientific inquiry. In the project reported here, students learn about measurement uncertainties and a…

In classroom science laboratories, unlike a real science laboratory, the teacher can guide students away from potential dead ends and toward data that are most likely to result in accurate conclusions. Sometimes, though, allowing students to pursue dead ends and to collect "bad" data can provide especially rich learning opportunities.…

It is well known that "interactive engagement" helps students to understand basic concepts in physics. Performing experiments and analyzing measured data are effective ways to realize interactive engagement, in our view. Some experiments need special equipment, measuring instruments, or laboratories, but in this activity we advocate…

This paper introduces the readers to simple inquiry-based activities (experiments with supporting questions) that one can do with a computer scanner to help students learn and apply the concepts of relative motion in 1 and 2D, vibrational motion and the Doppler effect. We also show how to use these activities to help students think like…

In our science for non-science majors course "21st Century Physics," we investigate modern "Hubble plots" (plots of velocity versus distance for deep space objects) in order to discuss the Big Bang, dark matter, and dark energy. There are two potential challenges that our students face when encountering these topics for the…

This study reports on a content course for science immersion teacher candidates that emphasized authentic practice of science and thinking scientifically in the context of introductory astrophysics. We explore how 122 science teacher candidates spanning three cohorts did and did not reason scientifically and how this evolved in our program. Our…

Experiments, as we all know, are especially important in science education. However, their impact on improving thinking could be even greater when applied together with the methods of inquiry-based learning (IBL). In this paper we present our observations of a high-school laboratory class where students used computers to carry out and analyse real…

Bird flight and lift in general is a complex subject which is also difficult to teach in a classroom. In order to support the teaching of this curriculum-based subject, an interactive exhibit to demonstrate aerodynamic aspects of objects has been developed, implemented and evaluated with 262 middle school students. The empirical evaluation…

Have you ever heard of a Maglev train? Who would be crazy enough to think that exploring how a high-tech train little known in the United States works with a group of fourth-grade students would yield understandings about the properties of magnetism, force and motion, and inquiry science? Fortunately, the authors--a college methods professor and…

Describes an investigation in which students predict and verify the effect that the number of clicks of a toy copter gun has on the height that the copter will attain. Provides follow-up questions for the students. (MDH)

These series of lessons uses the process of student inquiry to teach the concepts of force and motion identified in the National Science Education Standards for grades 5-8. The lesson plan also uses technology as a teaching tool through the use of interactive Web sites. The lessons are built on the 5-E format and feature imbedded assessments.