The Physics Teaching Podcast

Tag: practicals

  • From Darkest Peru

    From Darkest Peru

    WARNING: the following content contains numerous cheap references to Paddington Bear – see links.

    Matt Bowman

    Way back at the beginning of series one we were thrilled to hear from an international school teacher named Matt who had just landed in Lima (presumably bearing a label saying “Please look after this physics teacher”). Fast forward two years and we have finally managed to organise a chat with the fabulous Matt Bowman.

    Matt kindly shares his thoughts on working abroad, with numerous tips and inside observations. If you are thinking of a spell working overseas, Matt’s advice is absolutely essential so have a listen and be inspired! Links to the plum international physics teaching jobs from TES, below.

    Thomas was about to fix Matt with a particularly hard star over his attitude to practical work, but Matt is very pro-experimental work, just purposeful experimental work. Matt challenges us to target our planning at what knowledge or skills we want our students to leave the lab with after each practical. Do we really need to practise graph-drawing this time; is the design of the results table core to the objectives of this particular investigation? It’s an interesting point of view and Matt makes a good case. Thomas and Matt are still friends, now that we have cleared up that Matt is actually a big fan of experimental work…

    Matt’s Practical in Memoriam is measuring the speed of light with cheese (no, really)

    Links

    Join in!

    Please share ideas or successes – or indeed questions by messaging us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/physicstp.bsky.social .  You can also message us via our website contact form on every page of the web site at  the.physicsteachingpodcast.com, or email using the address given in the podcast (if we remember). We are moving away from X but can be found there as @physicstp.

    Music

    The music is used under the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License

  • A Couple of Nuggets

    A Couple of Nuggets

    Thomas shows Robin reminisce about (nearly) an academic year of podcasting. They describe their favourite practicals and are joined by Patrick Kaplo. Robin and Thomas between them share five practicals that they really enjoy as well as describing their best and worst moments of the year.

    A Couple of Nuggets

    Timestamps

    • Robin has an exciting announcement @ 00:46
    • Physics in the news, Hayabusa2 lands for the second time on an asteroid @ 01:22
    • Highlights @ 02:54
    • Finding the mass of a 1m ruler using a 1N weight @ 07:17
    • SHC using a kettle @ 11:41
    • Exploring uncertainty and efficacy of measuring devices using measuring 4 ohm resistors @ 20:16
    • Bond energy using a kettle @ 22:55
    • High Points and ideas for season 2 @ 25:46
    • Thomas’ PIM – Bias @ 32:09
    • Patrick Kaplo @ 39:48

    Summary

    Physics, physics, physics, Thomas and Robin just love to talk about how they teach it. Perhaps too much. They chat about the year they have had making the podcast and share some of their favourite practicals along the way.

    Finding the mass of a 1m ruler using a 1N weight

    Thomas wasn’t super clear in the podcast about this, but has made a Google Slide deck about it. Basically: Find a series of balance points for the ruler pivoted on the edge of a bench with the weight sitting on the but of ruler sticking out. clockwise moments = anticlockwise moments. The image below is from the google slide deck.

    Join in!

    Please share ideas or successes – or indeed questions by messaging us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/physicstp.bsky.social .  You can also message us via our website contact form on every page of the web site at  the.physicsteachingpodcast.com, or email using the address given in the podcast (if we remember). We are moving away from X but can be found there as @physicstp.

    Music

    The music is used under the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License