Many people erroneously believe that an object carried by another moving object will, if dropped, fall in a straight vertical line. This belief may stem from a perceptual illusion in which objects dropped from a moving carrier are perceived as falling straight down or even backward. (Author/RD)

Starting from a situated cognition perspective, this paper reports on the activity of 9th grade students who are interpreting the shape of a graph arising from the motion of a bouncing ball. In an unfamiliar context, informed by previous knowledge of similar experiments, the obstacle of understanding why the graph does not start from the origin is…

This report examines certain home cultural factors, cultural orientations, and learning preferences of African American school children from low-income backgrounds in order to document the relationship of prior cultural socialization experiences to enhanced cognitive, performance, and motivational outcomes. A conceptual basis is suggested for the…

This book aims to develop an understanding of basic physics concepts among school teachers in grades 3-8. The concepts covered in this book include force, motion, gravity, and circular motion without intimidating detailed units and formulas. Chapters include: (1) "Newton's First One"; (2) "In Which We Describe Motion and Then Change…

Discusses the use of a set of computer programs (FORTRAN IV) in an introductory mechanics course for science majors. One laboratory activity is described for determining the coefficient of restitution of a glider on an air track. A student evaluation for the lab is included in the appendix. (Author/TS)