A simple apparatus consisting of a plastic syringe coupled with a U-tube has been constructed. This setup is filled with water to trap air in one arm of the U-tube. A change in the volume of the enclosed air causes a change in its pressure that is indicated by the difference in the water levels. Boyle's law is shown by a linear relation between…

In January of 2019 I received the AAPT [American Association of Physics Teachers] Melba Phillips award. The award provided me the opportunity to reflect on the many programs in which I had participated and the outstanding AAPT leaders that I had the privilege to know. Those reflections are represented in the following narrative that I delivered at…

The issue of sexual harassment in science is gaining much needed attention. In physics, a 2019 survey study found that 68% of female undergraduate respondents experienced sexual or sexist harassment in a physics environment. In 2018, the National Academy of Science released a report to address the prevalence of sexual harassment in sciences,…

I describe an effort to enhance student engagement and classroom inclusion in a sophomore Introduction to Modern Physics class, through the use of assigned student groups, cold-calling, and exposure to the work of female physicists of varied backgrounds. These approaches took minimal effort, appeared to have positive impacts, and had no…

The aim of this study is to explore how tertiary science students' use of metaphors in their popular science article writing may influence their understanding of subject matter. For this purpose, six popular articles written by students in physics or geology were analysed by means of a close textual analysis and a metaphor analysis. In addition,…

The aim of this paper is to provide physics teachers and physics students with interdisciplinary cultural and scientific related content. The "dombra" is on the one hand a cultural symbol of Kazakhstan with a long tradition. On the other hand, the dombra as a musical instrument is an object of interest in acoustics. The topic can lead to…

In this paper, I engage with arguments put forth by Anna Günther-Hanssen in her article "A swing and a child: How scientific phenomena can come to matter for preschool children's emergent science identities." Günther-Hanssen argues that new materialism can help us see how scientific phenomena can create affordances in becoming scientific…

A glass of water covered with a disk with a hole in it can be turned upside down without spilling the water in the glass, provided the hole is small enough and the disk is pressed against the rim of the glass. A quasistatic numerical simulation based on hydrostatic pressure and surface tension of water was used calculate the critical hole diameter…

Polymer materials are indispensable in our daily lives. This makes polymer technology of critical importance in higher education. In particular, hands-on experiment-based practicals/laboratories with a focus on polymer science are of tremendous value in the undergraduate curriculum. Along these lines, hydrogels are highly cross-linked polymer…

In this article, a consecutive series of four hands-on experiments are recommended to teach the colors of paint/pigment and their mixtures. These activities, which are effective in learning about how to make a simple observation and help to build argument-based knowledge about colors, offer an integrated and innovative way of teaching colors of…

Design is often accepted as a fundamental aspect of engineering (Dym, et al., 2005). The design process is frequently portrayed as a set of steps. However, the design process is more complex than just a set of steps in a relatively fixed process. The complex nature of design, design thinking, questioning, and decision making is exactly what…

The concept of a sinusoidal wave traveling along a string is included in all secondary education physics books and as a result is being taught in undergraduate lectures around the globe. The didactic approach that follows is advantageous since it provides in a simplified way (through basic mathematical tools) a description of a disturbance that…

Solutions to global issues demand the involvement of scientists, yet concern exists about retention rates in science as students pass through school into University. Young children are curious about science, yet are considered incapable of grappling with abstract and microscopic concepts such as atoms, sub-atomic particles, molecules and DNA.…

A simple, cheap, and easy to make ionisation chamber to investigate the decay of Radon-220. Requires no expensive meters, experiment is carried out using thoriated gas mantles to produce the Radon-220, and the chambers are used with low cost digital multimeters. An opportunity for 16-18 students to carry out a hands-on experiment with an ionising…

Introductory physics students often express fears regarding graphical vector addition. To ameliorate student trepidation of possibly making a mistake when moving the second vector to its new position at the head of the first vector before being added, as is most often advised by physics teachers, an alternative method is detailed here. This subtly…