The application of technology in classroom settings has equipped educators with innovative tools and techniques for effective teaching practice. Integrating digital technologies at the elementary and secondary levels helps to enrich the students' learning experience and maximize competency in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and…

The origin of life is one of the great outstanding mysteries of science. People do not know whether life occurs because of an extraordinary fluke of chemistry that is unique to earth, or whether the universe is teeming with life. But either way, they can be sure of one thing: The universe permits life in at least one location. That basic fact,…

We analyse the two-dimensional motions of the rockets for various types of rocket thrusts, the air friction and the gravitation by using a suitable representation of the rocket equation and the numerical calculation. The slope shapes of the rocket trajectories are discussed for the three types of rocket engines. Unlike the projectile motions, the…

The input impedance of an infinite ladder network is computed by using the recursive relation and by assuming that the input impedance does not change when a new block is added to the network. However, this assumption is not true in general and standard textbooks do not always treat these networks correctly. This paper develops a general solution…

This article explores the reasons that Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) at the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW), commonly called PASS-UIW, has been successful in science courses at the University. The intent is to provide information for other institutions to launch, evaluate, or improve their own programs. PASS-UIW is a student-led…

Rapid technological enhancements and changes necessitate people who can understand the relation between science and technology and perceive as well as comment on technological enhancements. The aim of the present study was to determine physics students comprehension of the operation principles of wired telephone, mobile phone, and latest medical…

For the case of objects thrown from an elevated position, students tend to believe an object thrown at an upward angle will always land farther away than one thrown horizontally at the same speed. That this is not always the case comes as a great surprise to many. By analysing the situation of a horizontally-thrown object outdistancing one thrown…

A whiplash event is a relative motion between the head and torso that occurs in rear-end automobile collisions. In particular, the large inertia of the head results in a horizontal translation relative to the thorax. This paper describes a simulation of the motion of the head and neck during a rear-end (whiplash) collision. A head-neck model that…

The recent international story about the death of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko has more than just a few wondering about radiation poisoning and the sinister sounding polonium-210. I was preparing to begin a nuclear radiation unit the Monday after Thanksgiving 2006. As it turned out, Litvinenko died Thanksgiving Day after a short and…

One of my favorite 19th century electrical scientists is Edward Weston, and one of my favorite devices for teaching the topics of electromagnetic forces and torques is the D'Arsonval galvanometer. The junction of these two topics is Weston's improved meter movement that has been used in analog meters for the past 125 years.

This past semester I brought a Lava Lite[R] Lamp into my classroom. Why bring such a thing into class? Many of today's students are part of the "retro" movement. They buy clothes from the '60s, they wear their hair like people did in the '60s, and they look for the ideals and themes related to living in the 1960s. Physics education reform is also…

In this age of the microcomputer-based lab (MBL), students are quite accustomed to looking at graphs of position, velocity, and acceleration versus time. A number of textbooks argue convincingly that the slope of the velocity graph gives the acceleration, the area under the velocity graph yields the displacement, and the area under the…

The electrical design of the common hair dryer is based almost entirely on relatively simple principles learned in introductory physics classes. Just as biology students dissect a frog to see the principles of anatomy in action, physics students can "dissect" a hair dryer to see how principles of electricity are used in a real system. They can…

Fruit batteries and saltwater batteries are excellent ways to explore simple circuits in the classroom. These are examples of air batteries in which metal reacts with oxygen in the air in order to generate free electrons, which flow through an external circuit and do work. Students are typically told that the salt or fruit water acts as an…

In principle, designing a thermometer scale is easy. The trick lies in persuading others to use your scale. The Homigrade scale is an example of a clever and useful scale that has never caught on. Students can use it as an example of how they might set up their own arbitrary temperature scales.