A straightforward experimental set-up, requiring a two-liter bottle, a ruler and a stopwatch, is used to provide data appropriate for modelling with Torricelli's Law in the simplest case, and a more sophisticated differential equation when losses are taken into account and a pipe extension is considered. With only an exit hole included in the…

We propose an experimental analogy to verify Kepler's second law using a spherical pendulum. We made a movie of a closed elliptical orbit of the pendulum and extracted the data position using the Tracker software. Analyzing the data, we measured the areas that the position vector sweeps showing the validity of Kepler's second law.

The objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of blended physics laboratory experimentation on pre-service physics teachers' (PSPTs') understanding of the nature of science (NOS) during an electricity and magnetism laboratory course. The study used a non-equivalent comparison group using a pre-test-post-test quasi-experimental…

Along with substantial consensus around the power of active learning, comes some lack of precision in what its essential ingredients are. New educational technologies offer vehicles for systematically exploring benefits of alternative techniques for supporting active learning. We introduce a new genre of Intelligent Science Station technology that…

Students are well aware of the effect of the deflection of sports balls when they have been given a spin. A volleyball, tennis, or table tennis ball served with topspin results in an additional downward force that makes the ball difficult to catch and return. In soccer, the effect of sidespin causes the ball to curve unexpectedly sideways,…

The year 2014 marked the four-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of Galileo's birth, making it the perfect occasion to present and illustrate a GeoGebra applet which reproduces some of Galileo's celebrated experiments on the uniformly accelerated motion, as reported on in "Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New…

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.…

Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) is one of the basic analytical procedures in chemistry and allows the demonstration of various chemical principles in an educational setting. An often-overlooked aspect of TLC is the capability to quantify isolated target compounds in an unknown sample. Here, we present a suitable route to implement quantitative…

This paper describes how a microphone plugged in to a normal computer can be used to record the impacts of a ball bouncing on a table. The intervals between these impacts represent the "time of flight" of the ball. Since some energy is lost in each rebound, the time intervals get progressively smaller. Through calculation it is possible…

A classical experiment used to introduce the concept of body inertia, breaking of a thread below and above a hanging weight, is described mathematically and presented in a new way, using force sensors and a computer system.

The speed of sound in a solid is determined by the density and elasticity of the material. Young's modulus can therefore be calculated once the density and the speed of sound in the solid are measured. The density can be measured relatively easily, and the speed of sound through a rod can be measured very inexpensively by setting up a longitudinal…

This paper reports empirical evidence on having students use AR-SaBEr, a simulation tool based on augmented reality (AR), to discover the basic principles of electricity through a series of experiments. AR-SaBEr was enhanced with knowledge-based support and inquiry-based scaffolding mechanisms, which proved useful for discovery learning in…

Oscillating chemical reactions (OCRs) have been known since 1828, with the Belousov-Zhabotinskii (BZ) reaction the most studied example. Initially, OCRs were considered to be special cases due to the small number detected and because the oscillatory behavior did not seem to agree with the second law of thermodynamics. However, OCRs have become…

Entertaining and educational experiments that can be conducted in a water park, illustrating physics concepts, principles and fundamental laws, are described. These experiments are suitable for students ranging from senior secondary school to junior university level. Newton's laws of motion, Bernoulli's equation, based on the conservation of…

The Timepix hybrid silicon pixel detector has been used to investigate the inverse square law of radiation from a point source as a demonstration of the CERN [at] school detector kit capabilities. The experiment described uses a Timepix detector to detect the gamma rays emitted by an [superscript 241]Am radioactive source at a number of different…