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10. Ways to teach… Electricity
Merry Christmas Physics teachers! In a bumper festive edition, Thomas and Robin have rounded up your ideas and tips on how to teach electricity. It’s quite rare to reach a clear conclusion in a discussion of teaching, but there was consensus that if you are going to use a model, then the rope model is […]
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Using The Rope Model of Electricity
In the next podcast we inevitably talk about the rope model. I tried it a few times in the past and hated it ?. It was only in making the podcast that I finally understood how to do it and how good it is. Not knowing how to do it is as much a function […]
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Somebody Out There Likes Us
Robin and I started with very limited ambitions, it wasn’t quite “more listeners than presenters” but not far off. We agreed to do episodes until the end of the academic year and then see where we stood. At that point we had not got much further than me telling Robin he and I should start […]
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9. Mentors, Motors and Merch
Robin hadn’t heard about the recent Falcon landing failure so Thomas filled him in. Cutting-edge space technology is still frontier science: we need your students to be the engineers of tomorrow! Regular listeners will know how much Matt Groening influences the podcast, and just in time fro Christmas, we have launched our first ‘merch’, setting up […]
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8. Venn Hats, Meows and a Mysterious Tube
As David Bowie once mused “Is there seismic activity on Mars?” ( I think that’s what he said…), and who are we to argue? So we kicked off discussing NASA Mars Insight Lander and then Robin confessed to group about his tendency to get on a self-righteous soapbox (see episode 7!). Luckily this week’s chat was […]
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Refutation Text for the Jelly Chair
I said in Episode 6 I would share what I came up with for the Jelly Chair lesson and refutation texts. I did put some thought in to this but think that there is room for improvement. I ended up writing a few sentences for the kids to do: The ancient Greeks thought that arrows […]
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Kicking a Rock on the Moon
In Episode 6 I mentioned a thought experiment with a concrete-filled rugby ball. I have used this model for years and knew it came from a text book long ago and I have since been searching for it. I was convinced it came from Peter Warren, the head of department where I did my teacher […]
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7. Ben, Big Ideas and beginnings
Thomas and Robin talk about the podcast’s roots and where it all started, to help all teachers of physics to feel a sense of professional community. You can help by sharing it with your friends, and if you do that you have a chance to win a podcast T-Shirt! The competition lasts until 30th November […]
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Entries! and Momentum Round-Up
We put out the competition not really knowing quite what to expect. Four entries before 8:15am was an exciting start to the day though as I write at 4:30pm it is still four, which has brought me down to Earth somewhat! Momentum Day Today was “Momentum” day. After talking with Ben Rogers about cognitive Science […]
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6. What happens when your jelly won’t hold your weight? Is it time to lose some mass?
Thomas and Robin got together in the same room for a chat this week. Don’t worry, as a good physicist and a good engineer they avoided eye contact*. The big news last week was the redefinition of the kilogram which was originally based on the mass of Napoleon’s leg**, but latterly on a lump of […]