In this paper, I discuss different types of models in science education and applications of them in learning and teaching science, in particular physics. Based on the literature, I categorize models as conceptual and mental models according to their characteristics. In addition to these models, there is another model called "physics model" by the…

I have found that students easily understand that a measurement cannot be exact, but they often seem to lack an understanding of why it is important to know "something" about the magnitude of the uncertainty. This tends to promote an attitude that almost any uncertainty value will do. Such indifference may exist because once an uncertainty is…

A number of interesting demonstrations of circular and satellite motion have been described in this journal. This paper presents a variation of a centripetal force apparatus found in G.D. Freier and F.J. Anderson's "A Demonstration Handbook for Physics," which has been modified in order to demonstrate both centripetal force and satellite motion.…

Energy is a critical concept in physics problem-solving, but is often a major source of confusion for students if the presentation is not carefully crafted by the instructor or the textbook. A common approach to problems involving deformable or rotating systems that has been discussed in the literature is to employ the work-kinetic energy theorem…

When introducing heat transfer and insulation to my students, I have found that an insulation contest can be a good start. The experiment is fun, and it gets students thinking and wondering about heat transfer. When they have experienced how difficult it is to construct their own insulated container, they are very interested to know how a real…

Use of a microphone attached to a computer to capture musical sounds and software to display their waveforms and harmonic spectra has become somewhat commonplace. A recent article in "The Physics Teacher" aptly demonstrated the use of MacScope in just such a manner as a way to teach Fourier analysis. A logical continuation of this project is to…

We describe a model of the human eye that incorporates a variable converging lens. The model can be easily constructed by students with low-cost materials. It shows in a comprehensible way the functionality of the eye's optical system. Images of near and far objects can be focused. Also, the defects of near and farsighted eyes can be demonstrated.

A well-known experiment for the measurement of the acceleration of gravity is carried out on a personal computer using standard software for a sound card in a non-canonical way, which provides an improved, more accurate, result and is a useful teaching method for a traditional classroom experiment. (Contains 3 figures and 1 footnote.)

In the "Third Day" of the "Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences" Galileo Galilei describes the famous experiment of the inclined plane and uses it to bring an experimental confirmation to the laws of uniformly accelerated motion. We describe a reconstruction of the experiment and how the results can be used for…

Demonstrations are increasingly becoming staple fare in the armoury of physics teachers. Physics is generally perceived to be a difficult subject, so the use of demonstrations to scaffold understanding as well as generate interest among students is valuable. When a demonstration is presented in a mysterious manner, students want to know how it is…

We have developed an experimental activity that introduces concepts of the natural ionizing radiation and its interaction with our contemporary environment that can be used with students from secondary to college level. The experiment is based on the use of traditional and cheap portable Geiger-Muller detectors as survey meters for "in situ"…

The authors describe a Modeling Instruction program that places an emphasis on the construction and application of conceptual models of physical phenomena as a central aspect of learning and doing science. (Contains 1 table.)

A general result for the integrals of the Gaussian function over the harmonic oscillator wavefunctions is derived using generating functions. Using this result, an example problem of a harmonic oscillator with various Gaussian perturbations is explored in order to compare the results of precise numerical solution, the variational method, and…

A comparison of capillary rise and nucleation is presented. It is shown that both phenomena result from a balance between two competing energy factors: a volume energy and a surface energy. Such a comparison may help to introduce nucleation with a topic familiar to the students, capillary rise. (Contains 1 table and 3 figures.)

Valence bond (VB) is one of the cornerstone theories of quantum chemistry. Even if in practical applications the molecular orbital (MO) approach has obtained more attention, some basic chemical concepts (such as the nature of the chemical bond and the failure of the single determinant-based MO methods in describing the bond cleavage) are normally…