An experimental setup, based on a plastic scintillator with an embedded wavelength shifter fibre and photosensors at the two ends, has been used to detect cosmic muons in undergraduate laboratory activities. Time and amplitude information from the two photosensors were measured using the time-over-threshold technique. The distribution of the…

Teachers strive to engage students in rich and varied experiences involving exploration. These experiences should be accessible to all types of learners (e.g., visual, kinesthetic, mathematically inclined), offering multiple pathways for engagement at different levels of sophistication and accommodating both conceptual and computational…

Because undergraduate participation in research is a longstanding and increasingly important aspect of the career path for future scientists, students can benefit from additional resources to introduce them to the culture and process of research. We suggest the adoption of the web resource "Astrobites" as a classroom tool to increase the…

Collaboration between two biologists and a physicist resulted in the example of tattooing being used as a motivator to support discussion across several scientific fields (cell biology, microbiology, human health, and physics). Although often viewed as self-destructive and rebellious in the Western world, tattooing has a deep and rich history full…

In this work, the authors analyze the video game genres' features and investigate potential mappings to specific didactic approaches in the context of Physics education. To guide the analysis, the authors briefly review the main didactic approaches for Physics and identify qualities that can be projected into game features. Based on the…

Aspects of assessment in physics are considered with the aim of designing assessments that will encourage a deep approach to student learning and will ultimately lead to higher levels of achievement. A range of physics questions are considered and categorized by the level of knowledge and understanding which is require for a successful answer.…

Each fall the Statistical Research Center conducts its Survey of Enrollments and Degrees, which asks all degree-granting physics and astronomy departments in the US to provide information concerning the numbers of students they have enrolled and counts of recent degree recipients. In connection with this survey, the authors ask for the names and…

The present study aims at exploring university students' knowledge of sound, especially their understandings of sound phenomena taught in formal science classrooms at junior high school. The participants are 30 university students attending literary courses. They were selected because they were considered to have had few opportunities to formally…

Research in physics education indicates that the use of multiple representations in teaching and learning helps students become better problem-solvers. We report on a study to investigate students' difficulties in solving mechanics problems presented in multiple representations. We conducted teaching/learning interviews with 20 students in a…

Take a strip of paper and fold a crease intersecting the long edges, creating two angles. Choose one edge and consider the angle with the crease. Fold the opposite edge along the crease, creating a new crease that bisects the angle. Fold again, this time using the newly created crease and the initial edge, creating a new angle along the chosen…

Mathematics is full of surprises and beauty. In this article, the author discusses three favourite topics that he finds both amazing and amusing: (1) the problem of the possibility of subdividing a rectangle into a number of different squares; (2) the arrangement formed when several soap bubbles meet; and (3) circles and spheres.

In the framework of the Italian National Plan "Lauree Scientifiche" (PLS) in collaboration with secondary schools, we have investigated the mechanical paradox of the double cone. We have calculated the geometric condition for obtaining an upward movement. Based on this result, we have built a mechanical model with a double cone made of aluminum…

The Schrodinger equation for the ground state of a hydrogen atom confined at the centre of an impenetrable cavity is treated using variational perturbation theory. Energies calculated from variational perturbation theory are comparable in accuracy to the results from a direct numerical solution. The goal of this exercise is to introduce the…

Frictional losses are experimentally determined for a uniform circular disc exhibiting rotational motion. The clockwise and anticlockwise rotations of the disc, that result when a hanger tied to a thread is released from a certain height, give rise to vertical oscillations of the hanger as the thread winds and unwinds over a pulley attached to the…

We derive the energy levels associated with the even-parity wavefunctions of the harmonic oscillator with an additional delta-function potential at the origin. Our results bring to the attention of students a non-trivial and analytical example of a modification of the usual harmonic oscillator potential, with emphasis on the modification of the…