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Investigations and Practical Activities

  • Armitage, F et al. 1988, Physics Demonstrations, STAV Publishing.
  • Freier G D, Anderson, F J 1981, Demonstration Handbook for Physics, AAPT Publishing.
  • McKittrick, B 1991, Physics Experiments and Student Investigations, McGraw Hill.
  • O'Keeffe, D & Embury, J 1992, Investigating, STAV Publishing.
  • Swift, DG 1983, Physics for Rural Development, Wiley New York.
  • Walker, J 1988, The Flying Circus of Physics with Answers, Wiley, New York.

0 Practical Physics

The homepage for Practical Physics, an initiative of the Institute of Physics (UK) and the Nuffield Foundation. It has worksheets for practical activities in over 10 topics, covering Astronomy, Electricity, Electromagnetism, Mechanics, Light and Waves. Each topic has the activities grouped in collections, e.g. the topic 'Electric circuits and fields', has a collection 'Current and charge' which has several experiments. Each experiment includes a description, equipment, technical notes, safety reference, procedure, sample readings and teaching notes. Each topic also has several items under the heading 'Guidance'. There is also an extensive section on Teaching and Learning.

0 Demonstrations by University of Melbourne

This is a comprehensive website of demonstrations and experiments done by the Physics Department of the University of Melbourne. Many of them are appropriate for secondary physics. Topics represented include: Mechanics, Optics, Heat and thermodynamics, Fluids and surface tension, Electricity and magnetism, Wave motion, Electrostatics, Modern physics and Astronomy/Astrophysics. The description of each experiment includes aim, apparatus, diagrams, description and safety notes, there is no student worksheet.

0 Physics Demonstrations: A Source book

This is a compilation of demonstrations by Julien Sprott of the University of Wisconsin done in 1996. There are 20 examples for Motion, 22 for Heat, 9 for Sound, 7 for Electricity, 5 for Magnetism and 11 for Light.

0 Physics Teaching Technology Resource

This website is the work of Dr Eugenia Etkina from Rutgers University. The goals of this website are: i) to effectively implement video technology through investigative learning cycles, ii) to provide a resource of ideas and methods for constructivist physics teaching in the form of videos experiments, learning cycles and pre and post test questions, and iii) to be used as a distance learning resource. The website has several activities for each of over a dozen topics across physics. All use Quicktime videos.

0 Experiment of the Month Archive

This website has details of over 100 experiments done by staff at Millersville University (US). Some are tertiary related, but most are relevant to a secondary context. Rather than provide a structured worksheet, the authors describe in a conversational way what they did and why as well as the students' results. Most have diagrams.