As a Certified Laban Movement Analyst and a classically trained ballet dancer, I consistently weave the Laban Movement Analysis/Bartenieff Fundamentals (LMA/BF) theories and philosophies into the ballet class. This integration assists in: (1) Identifying the qualitative movement elements both in the art of ballet and in the students' dancing…

Six experiments investigated 7-month-old infants' capacity to learn about the self-propelled motion of an object. After observing 1 wind-up toy animal move on its own and a second wind-up toy animal move passively by an experimenter's hand, infants looked reliably longer at the former object during a subsequent stationary test, providing evidence…

It has been proposed that infants can form global categories such as animate and inanimate objects (Mandler, 2004). The inductive generalization paradigm was used to examine inferences made by infants about the bodily, motion, and sensory capabilities of people and animals. In Experiment 1, 14-month-old infants generalized bodily and sensory…

It only makes sense to talk about the position of a moving object if one specifies the time at which its position is of interest. The authors here show that when a flash or tone specifies the moment of interest, subjects estimate the moving object to be closer to where it passes the fixation point and further in its direction of motion than it…

Children with autistic spectrum disorder and controls performed tasks of coherent motion and form detection, and motor control. Additionally, the ratio of the 2nd and 4th digits of these children, which is thought to be an indicator of foetal testosterone, was measured. Children in the experimental group were impaired at tasks of motor control,…

This paper examines upper-body movement kinematics in individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger's disorder (AD). In general, the results indicate that HFA is more consistently associated with impaired motoric preparation/initiation than AD. The data further suggest that this quantitative difference in motor impairment is not…

The concept of interaction that underlies Newton's Laws of Motion is compared with the students' commonsense ideas of force and motion. An approach to teaching Newton's Third Law of Motion is suggested that focuses on refining the student's intuitive thinking on the nature of interaction.

Albert Einstein's theory of the Brownian motion, Marian von Smoluchowski's heuristic model, and Perrin's experimental results helped to bring the concept of molecules from a state of being a useful hypothesis in chemistry to objects existing in reality. Central to the theory of Brownian motion is the relation between mean particle displacement and…

In 2006, as a beginning teacher in a Western Sydney school, the author explored slow motion animation ("slowmation") as a strategy for teaching Year 4 students about equivalent fractions. She taught at this school five days a week, teaching Kindergarten, Year 4, and Year 5. Slowmation can be defined as a simplified version of claymation…

Bernoulli's principle is being misunderstood and consequently misused. This paper clarifies the issues involved, hypothesises as to how this unfortunate situation has arisen, provides sound explanations for many everyday phenomena involving moving air, and makes associated recommendations for teaching the effects of moving fluids.

Presents one approach to solving problems concerned with minimum stopping distances. In this approach differing negative accelerations are considered in addition to the speed and reaction time. (GS)

Article described a course taught at a university department of theater that was designed to deepen our cognizance of the potential of the human body as a dance instrument as it widened our knowledge of dance in the context of human history. (Author/RK)

Diagrams and photographs are incorporated in an explanation of the physics involved in the skills of diving and swimming. (CP)

Examines the relationship between the ease with which a picture is interpreted and the structural similarity between the picture and the subject it represents. Preschoolers, first graders, sixth graders, and college students participated in the study. (CW)