Extension Activity for Oscillations - Moment of Inertia of a Tennis Racquet

  I am back teaching the SMTP (Science and Math Talent Programme)students again and yes, it is truly a pleasure teaching them. Is it challenging and stressful? Yes, it is :).  Just as I push them, they push me as well and it is great pleasure to be learning.  

I just did a great activity with them. We have been studying oscillations (A-level syllabus) and I had been wanting to do greater extensions with them. So we decided to move into Oscillations of a Physical Pendulum. Using a journal reading from Physics teacher as a base. I got the students to break up the journal into unfamiliar concepts and pen down questions that they would like to ask. We rearranged the questions and concepts into chunks and logical flow and then I assigned each group to look into the questions. They are to present the concepts within 5-10 min at next tutorial (3 days later).


Details Activity:

Objectives : 

• To understand the mechanics of a Physical Pendulum and see its relevance in a real life context

Article :

• The moment of inertia of a tennis racket  - by Howard Brody
• http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/tpt/23/4/10.1119/1.2341781

Lesson Outline:

• 5 min :  Self-Reading of article and pen down questions that you like to ask.
• 5 min :  Within team consolidate and list down the questions that you think you need to ask and need to know the answers to to allow you to understand the article.
• 10 min : Teacher discuss and pen and arrange concepts and questions on the board, chunk them them into pieces to assign (with discussion with students).  Each team picks the question they would like to work on to prepare a 5 -10 min presentation.

Questions raised by students :

• Team 1 :  What is Moment of Inertia?  What is its Significance?  How do we determine it for different shape objects.
• Team 2:  How is moment of inertia related to rotational motion?
• Team 3 :  What is parallel axis theorem?  When is it used?
• Team 4 :  What is a physical pendulum and how does it work?
• Team 5 : Understanding the Article :  Aim, Significance, Method
• Team 6:  Understanding the Article : Results, Analysis and Interpretations and Conclusions.

Teaching Resources - Nuclear Physics

Videos

1.  The Most Radioactive Places on Earth

 

 

 

Published on Dec 17, 2014 by Veritasium

Who on Earth is exposed to the most ionizing radiation?
[Check out Audible: http://bit.ly/AudibleVe]
A documentary for TV about how Uranium and radioactivity have shaped the modern world to be ll be broadcast in mid-2015, details to come. The film goes to the most radioactive places on Earth (and some places, which surprisingly aren't as radioactive as you'd think). Chernobyl and Fukushima were incredible to see as they present post-apocalyptic landscapes. It also visits nuclear power plants, research reactors, Marie Curie's institute, Einstein's apartment, nuclear medicine areas of hospitals, uranium mines, nuclear bomb sites, and interviewed numerous experts.

Notes about measuring radiation:
Sieverts are a measure of 'effective dose' - that means they measure the biological impact of the energy transferred to tissues from radiation.

Advanced Level H2 Physics Chapter 1 Measurements - Framework of Concepts (In Progress)

Before I plan my lessons and assessment and what I want to teach for Physics, I tend to write down a framework of concepts for my lessons.  I looks similar to the syllabus but more in detail as I tend to break it down further into skills and specific concepts that I want to teach.  Decided to document them here and add on it and hope it will be useful to all.

If you think that I have missed out anything points and wish to add on, do leave your comments and I will look into it.

Topic 1 Measurements

The topic of measurements consists of 4 main subtopics:

1.1 Physical Quantities and Units
1.2 Errors and Uncertainties
1.3 Scalars and Vectors
1.4 Orders of Magnitude

1.1 Framework of Concepts and Skills for Physical Quantities and Units

1.2 Errors and Uncertainties- 2 Feb 2015

For Physics at A-levels, the treatment of errors and uncertainties is simplistic and yet difficult for students.  We do not do standard deviations and variance in Physics but get students to understand that quantities that are measured have some inherent uncertainty in them and these errors propagate to the calculations and hence there are inherent errors even in derived values.

The rules to get the uncertainties are rather straightforward, however as they are not derived for students, students do not understand that these are therefore just estimates.  For my classes I tend to do the derivations with them and then also look into other methods for determining the uncertainties e.g. calculus and statistics to broaden their horizon.  

They is the first part where students themselves realize that there are no standard answers, like in secondary school, for Physics.  Many stump at the qualitative parts as tutors (and examiners) give contextual questions where often experiments and results are shown and students are expected to identify systematic and random errors.  Most give very generic answers not pertaining to the question or fail to explain why the error they have identified is a systematic or random one and hence often do not gain credit.  Assessment of the contextual question can be done either in main paper or practical paper.

1.3 Vectors and Scalars - 2 Feb 2015