What student— or teacher— can resist the chance to experiment with Rocket Launchers, Drinking Birds, Dropper Poppers, Boomwhackers, Flying Pigs, and more? The 54 experiments in Using Physics Gadgets and Gizmos, Grades 9– 12, encourage your high school students to explore a variety of phenomena involved with pressure and force, thermodynamics, energy, light and color, resonance, buoyancy, two-dimensional motion, angular momentum, magnetism, and electromagnetic induction.
The authors say there are three good reasons to buy this book:
1.To improve your students’ thinking skills and problem-solving abilities
2.To acquire easy-to-perform experiments that engage students in the topic
3.To make your physics lessons waaaaay more cool
The phenomenon-based learning (PBL) approach used by the authors— two Finnish teachers and a U.S. professor— is as educational as the experiments are attention-grabbing. Instead of putting the theory before the application, PBL encourages students to first experience how the gadgets work and then grow curious enough to find out why. Students engage in the activities not as a task to be completed but as exploration and discovery.
The idea is to help your students go beyond simply memorizing physics facts. Using Physics Gadgets and Gizmos can help them learn broader concepts, useful critical-thinking skills, and science and engineering practices (as defined by the Next Generation Science Standards). And— thanks to those Boomwhackers and Flying Pigs— both your students and you will have some serious fun.
Dr. Matt Bobrowsky is now at Delaware State University, engaged in a number of exhilarating activities in science education, public outreach, and program management. Experience at the University of Maryland -- teaching, research, public outreach activities, and serving as Director of the Physics Lecture-Demonstration Facility, a collection of 1,600 science demonstrations. Served in the Office of Public Outreach at the (Hubble) Space Telescope Science Institute, and prior to that, at the Challenger Center for Space Science Education -- places where Matt developed science curriculum materials, presented workshops to teachers, and led teams of scientists and educators in educational programs across the U.S. Matt has received multiple teaching awards. (See, for example, http: //tinyurl.com/2001RegentsAward ) At UMUC, Matt was a pioneer in online education, authoring online content as UMUC became the the first university in the U.S. to offer online degree programs. Educational presentations on the process of science, misconceptions in science, effective science teaching, science vs. pseudoscience, the Physics IQ Test, and a number of entertaining and educational astronomy presentations. Author of Phenomenon-Based Learning Books. (See link below.) Also see his Process of Science publication. http: //bit.ly/explainscience In his research, Matt has made astronomical observations with many telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope. His specialty is the study of planetary nebulae -- clouds of gas expanding outward from aging stars. (See one planetary nebula that he discovered here: http: //apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap011006.html ) Specialties: project management, physics, astronomy, the process of science, best practices in education, public speaking, and public outreach
