Video Analysis of a Bouncing Ball

Nothing earth-shattering here. I just wanted to share the activity we worked on today, which was an introduction to quantitative energy conservation by doing a video analysis of a bouncing ball. (Up until now, we were only doing qualitative energy pie charts.) Here are the handouts and the video:

• PreLab: Energy of a Bouncing Ball 2013 (docx)
• Lab: Energy of a Bouncing Ball 2013 (docx)
• Ball Bounce Video (avi) — From Ball State’s Video Analysis: Real World Investigations for Physics and Mathematics

The graphs from the analysis are just beautiful:

Lots to talk about in those graphs!

Feel free to edit and reuse the handouts as you see fit. They’re not perfect, but I figure it’s better to share them than having them collect dust on my flash drive.

PS: I’ll sheepishly admit that I don’t do the whole suite of paradigm labs in the Modeling unit to mathematically derive the energy equations from experiments. But we do some simple qualitative demos/experiments to discover what variables would be in those energy equations. We start by talking about how the further a rubber band is stretched, the more energy it stores. Then we launch carts into a rubber band “bumper” (i.e., big rubber bands from Staples and two C-clamps) to qualitatively see the energy stored.

In doing so, we see that the cart’s kinetic energy depends on its speed and its mass. (Or is it weight? What would happen if we repeated the experiment on the moon?)

For gravitational energy, we can repeat the experiment, but have carts rolling down an incline. Or use the rubber band to launch the cart up the incline. I’ve also dropped balls into sand and looked at the depth to which they get buried. Either way, we see that gravitational energy depends on height and weight. (Or is it simply mass? What would happen on the moon?)

For elastic energy, we already know it depends on the distance the rubber band is stretched. Then, we can swap out the rubber band in the bumper with a stiffer/looser one to see the effects of the spring constant on energy stored.

Then, after we predict what the energy equations might look like, I just give them the actual energy equations, or have them look them up. (Gasp! See Schwartz’s A Time for Telling, aka Preparation for Future Learning.)

So, modelers, what am I missing by not doing the full-blown energy paradigm labs? How do you introduce the quantitative energy equations?

Physics Teaching 2.Uh-Oh

My first talk! Given at the STANYS 2011 Physics Breakfast on November 8th, 2011 in Rochester, New York

Links to resources mentioned in the talk:

• Feynman’s blackboard at his death
• Hake’s “Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses“
• Bowling Ball & Mallet exploration
• Whiteboarding
• Modeling Instruction
• Tug of war on Slip ‘N’ Slide video
• PhET Simulations
• Angry Birds in the Physics Classroom
• Instant feedback with orange pens
• Doxie scanner – educator’s price
• Worked Examples and Practice
• Standards-based Grading
• Active Grade and Blue Harvest online SBG gradebooks
• Blogs –> Check the side bar!
• Physics teachers on Twitter
• Global Physics Department

A huge thank you to Gene Gordon for inviting me to speak at the breakfast. It was great to share my passions and meet my virtual colleagues face-to-face!

I’d love any feedback you have, positive and negative. Thanks!

Angry Birds in the Physics Classroom

I recently blogged that you can now play Angry Birds in your web browser. This opens up all sorts of video analysis possibilities for physics lessons and assessment. Students can easily make their own videos or you can pre-record your own. Videos can be recorded using Jing, Screencast-O-Matic, or Camtasia Studio. Analysis can be done in Logger Pro or Tracker.

Here are some possible investigations to carry out (shared by Michael Magnuson on the WNYPTA email list):

1. Make a reasonable estimate for the size of an angry bird, and determine the value of g in Angry Bird World. Why would the game designer want to have g be different than 9.8 m/s²?   Download Angry Birds video.

2. Does the blue angry bird conserve momentum during its split into three?  Download Red and Blue Birds video.

3. Does the white bird conserve momentum when it drops its bomb? Why would the game designer want the white bird to drop its bomb the way that it does?  Download White Bird video.

4. Describe in detail how the yellow bird changes velocity.  You will need to analyze more than one flight path to answer this question.  Download Yellow Birds video.

5. Shoot an angry bird so that it bounces off one of the blocks. Determine the coefficient of restitution and the mass of the angry bird.  Download Red Birds and Falling Block video.

You can download each video using the links above or get them all here.

Other posts with ideas about how to use Angry Birds in physics class:

• Rhett Allain’s analysis of The Physics of Angry Birds.
• John Burk’s post Introducing projectile motion using Angry Birds
• Peter Kupfer’s post Angry Birds and Physics

How have you used (or will use) Angry Birds in the classroom?

UPDATE 12-28-2011: Our class has been featured on CUNY-TV’s “Science and U!” Jump to 10:25 in the video below:

Red, Blue, and Yellow Angry Birds

Download the original video files:

• Red Birds and Falling Block
• Red and Blue Birds
• Yellow Birds

Angry Birds for Google Chrome

You can now play Angry Birds in Google Chrome! This makes getting footage for video analysis much easier. Here you go:

Download the video file for your own analysis. I used Camtasia Studio (free trial) to do the screen recording.

Enjoy!

Increasing Engagement in Science

As part of a session on innovative practices in science at TeachMeet New Jersey 2011, I gave a presentation entitled “Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Increasing Engagement in Science”

I have posted that presentation, complete with speaker’s notes and plenty of links to further information, here: http://bit.ly/EngageSci

Any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated! (e.g., is there a bigger theme I am missing, etc.) Thanks! J3BC3J3HSY8J

Some Resources for New Physics Teachers

In a comment from an earlier post, Matt Wasilawski writes:

Thank you very much for these posts, I am looking forward to using them in physics. I have been teaching Earth Science and AP Environmental Science for the past 10 years. I was assigned to teach Physics this year. I was hoping that you could direct me to more specific modeling suggestions for topics in Physics. I do not have a strong background in Physics but have been working hard to develop my knowledge base.

Here are some of my resource recommendations to help new physics teachers with planning and instruction:

Get yourself a copy of Randy Knight’s Five Easy Lessons: Strategies for Successful Physics Teaching. He discusses the best in physics education research, describes several methods for interactive engagement, and goes through a typical physics course unit-by-unit with lesson plan ideas and places where students have misconceptions and stumbling blocks. Every physics teacher should have this book because we all should be incorporating more teaching strategies based on physics education research.

Walking in front of motion detectors to kinesthetically match graphs of motion -- highly recommended by physics education research

The K-12 Physics standards by Heller and Stewart have lesson plan ideas and activities which are founded on physics education research.

The ASU Modeling Website has their Mechanics curriculum available for download, including teacher notes.

Mark Shober is a modeler who put all his materials on his class website. It’s tied to his class calendar, which makes it great for pacing.

And lastly, there is the Physics Classroom website. While it doesn’t mesh perfectly with modeling, it is much better than the most widely used physics textbook. The website has online readings and animations for you and your students, worksheets with links to the corresponding online readings, problem sets with audio solutions, labs, rubrics, and objectives. There are also Minds-On Physics modules, which are good for formative assessment.

I know there are many more, but these are the ones that stick out in my mind as being most helpful.

To my more experienced readers: Leave your favorite resources for new physics teachers in the comments!

Effective Technology for STEM

Most technology professional development in my district and in my region seemed to revolve around several common themes:

• How to use office software
• How to use an interactive whiteboard
• Blogs, wikis, and podcasts
• Developing a PLN
• Check out this cool Web 2.0 tool!!!!

ACK! There was nothing aimed directly at science and math teachers. So, two years ago, I taught a 15-hour in-service course on effective technology use for STEM teachers in my district. I framed the course around the book Technology in the Seconday Science Classroom by Randy L. Bell, Julie Gess-Newsome, and Julie Luft. You can download the book for free here at the NSTA Store.

My goal for the course was to introduce these technologies with best practices in mind (e.g., curriculum enhancement, differentiated instruction, formative assessment), and not “technology for technology’s sake.” The pedagogy should drive the technology, not the other way around.

The course explored the following topics, directly aimed at science and math teachers:

• Technology tools for teachers
• Using video and pictures
• Virtual simulations
• Probeware
• Online inquiry
• Online HW and assessment

I also created a website to go along with the course. It is nothing fancy. Simply a repository of the many resources I shared in the course. And now I share them here with you.

http://sites.google.com/site/effectivetechforstem/

I hope you find something new!

(Note: I offered the course in 2008-2009. No doubt things have changed since then. If something doesn’t make sense, don’t hesitate to contact me.)