March 18, 2023 Filed in:
ArticlesEric Haller, Peel District School Board, Editor of the OAPT Newsletter
eric.haller@peelsb.com
Often, we ask students to do an experiment, gather a set of two-variable data, make a scatter plot, and then try to find the curve of best fit, along with its equation. Historically, Microsoft Excel was the go-to for doing something like this, however nowadays I find my students are most comfortable using
Desmos to graph things, because it’s free, simple to use, and doesn’t require any installation or logging in. Desmos is great for making scatter plots and fitting curves, and it can even fit curves beyond Excel’s ‘Add Trendline’ functionality, which is limited to exponential, power, logarithmic, and polynomial-types of curves (Excel can do additional curves, but it's tricky, check out my
previous article for instructions on how to do that if you like). In this article, I’d like to go over how you can do a curve of best fit in Desmos, even for complicated curves like what you would find with a damped harmonic oscillator experiment, or with Kepler's third law of planetary motion.
Read More...Tags: Math, Motion, Technology
October 22, 2022 Filed in:
ArticlesOrbax, Production Specialist for Physics Education Content, Department of Physics, University of Guelph
orbax@uoguelph.ca
Greetings educators! Orbax here from the Department of Physics at the University of Guelph.
When I went to university for physics in the late 90s, “science communication” as we know it now did not exist. Our science communicators were there, but it seemed like it was much more of a journey to find them then than it is now. Television (both high-end productions and cable access), radio, print media… these were the ways in which we found science communication mostly born out of a necessity to demystify some of the more obscure elements of our profession as well as a way to combat some of the pseudoscience that was rampant in the media.
Read More...Tags: Forces, Kinematics, Magnetism, Motion, STEM
September 30, 2021 Filed in:
ArticlesRobert Prior, ePublisher of OAPT Newsletter
science@robertprior.caMany of our students struggle with mastering the relationship between position-time graphs and velocity-time graphs. They may know that the velocity-time graph shows the slope of a position-time graph, or that the position-time graph shows the area under the velocity-time graph, but they have trouble telling if two graphs are related except by actually doing the calculations.
We all know that practice makes perfect, but drawing many graphs takes lots of time, and time is in short supply. This activity uses pre-drawn graphs so students spend time thinking rather than drawing.
Read More...Tags: Kinematics, Motion, Pedagogy
November 16, 2019 Filed in:
ArticlesRoberta Tevlin, OAPT Newsletter Editor, Teacher at Danforth CTI
roberta@tevlin.ca
One of the standard parts of an introductory physics course is a study of Newton’s Three Laws of Motion. They are part of the Ontario curriculum for grade 11 physics and most teachers would agree that they are essential. Chris Meyer has presented an improved way to teach the three laws of motion that will deepen student understanding:
Teaching Forces I and
Teaching Forces II.
In this article, I hope to reinforce Chris’ approach with a look at how the history of these three laws is wrongly presented.
Read More...Tags: Forces, History, Kinematics, Motion, Pedagogy, Projectile Motion
October 28, 2019 Filed in:
ArticlesChris Meyer
President, Ontario Association of Physics Teachers
Hybrid Teacher-Coach for Science, Toronto District School Board
christopher.meyer@tdsb.on.ca
Once classes have settled down and our students are trained (see the
Quick Guide for Introduction Lessons), we are now ready to focus on teaching some physics! The first unit often taught is motion, both in the grade 11 and 12 courses. Most teachers feel pretty confident with this unit, but I hope to share some tips that might help you out in a few tricky spots. Read on!
Read More...Tags: Kinematics, Motion
November 03, 2018 Filed in:
ArticlesChris Meyer, President, Ontario Association of Physics Teachers
Christopher.meyer@tdsb.on.ca
Here is a rich problem solving activity that I use when introducing the five equations of constant acceleration with my grade 11s.
Goal: I want to teach my students how to apply their new understanding to real physical situations and avoid plug’n’chug type questions.
Read More...Tags: Kinematics, Motion, Pedagogy
October 19, 2018 Filed in:
ArticlesEric Haller, Occasional Secondary School Teacher, Peel District School Board
rickyhaller@hotmail.com
In science, it’s always nice to be able to do a hands-on experiment. While there are many experiments you can do in class, there are some you can’t. Sometimes a particular experiment may require expensive equipment that you don’t have, may take too long to set up, may yield data that is too imprecise to analyze properly, or an experiment may be too dangerous for a classroom setting. At the latest annual OAPT conference Andrew Moffat showed us several websites with video libraries filled with experiments that I wouldn’t be able to recreate myself (skip to the end of this article for those links). To give you a taste of what kinds of videos are available, and how you might build a lesson around one of them for your students, I’d like to analyze one of my favourite videos from the collections.
Read More...Tags: Fluids, Kinematics, Math, Motion, Pressure
April 28, 2018 Filed in:
ArticlesTimothy Sibbald, OCT, associate professor, Schulich School of Education, Nipissing University, North Bay.
timothys@nipissingu.ca
Tiberiu Veres, teacher candidate, Schulich School of Education, Nipissing University, North Bay.
tib.veres@gmail.com
Michael Anderson, teacher candidate, Schulich School of Education, Nipissing University, North Bay.
mdanderson384@community.nipissingu.ca
Newton’s cradle is a classic physics ‘toy’ that is interpreted as showing the conservation of energy and momentum. In some respects it is too good at what it does. Students see predictability in the action that takes place and may not be driven to consider it more deeply. In essence, the instructional problem is that the cognitive dissonance that it causes can be explained fairly readily as conservation of momentum. However, like so many elements of physics, if it is tackled in the right way the richness of Newton’s cradle can be revealed.
Read More...Tags: Energy, Motion
January 10, 2018 Filed in:
ArticlesChris Meyer, York Mills C. I., Toronto
Christopher.meyer@tdsb.on.ca
The Gold Medal Race
It was a thrill to watch the Toronto high school student Penny Oleksiak win gold in the pool at the Rio summer Olympics. Now my students and I watch her win every semester as part of our new motion unit for grade 11 physics. In this article, I will describe the new pedagogical ideas that I have built into this unit, starting with Penny Oleksiak. Penny’s outstanding performance is a great example for physics students because: she’s awesome, she’s female, she’s still in high school, and it draws students into a real application of what they learn: sport science.

Read More...Tags: Motion, Pedagogy
September 17, 2017 Filed in:
ArticlesNassi Rafiee, teacher Toronto DSB
Nassi.rafiee@tdsb.on.ca
Many grade 12 physics students plan to pursuit engineering in their post-secondary studies. Surprisingly, many lack a clear idea about the required skillset and what to expect in their next 4 years of education.
Last year I came up with the idea of having students design a mechanical pinball machine that demonstrates the mechanics concepts in grade 12. It was originally intended to focus on team building, engineering design process, physics calculations and writing skills, however as soon as I shared the idea with students, they got so excited that they formed their groups immediately and insisted that they wanted to build it too.
Read More...Tags: Energy, Kinematics, Momentum, Motion, STEM
June 10, 2017 Filed in:
ArticlesRoberta Tevlin, Editor, OAPT Newsletter
Roberta.tevlin@tdsb.on.ca
Edited by Tim Langford
Projectile motion often involves a lot of mathematical problem-solving that is overly simplified and highly contrived. Football players do not stop to calculate the range before making a pass. Invading armies might want to make calculations for siege weapons, but these tend to be too complicated (trebuchets) or involve too much energy loss (catapults). Guess and check, was probably the preferred technique. Fortunately there is a cheap and reliable projectile launcher that you can use to show that physics works. Your students will be able to use it to hit a target on their first shot by using calculations for conservation of energy and projectile motion.
Read More...Tags: Energy, Kinematics, Motion, Projectile Motion
April 21, 2017 Filed in:
ArticlesSarah Grimes, Justin Findlay, Dave Doucette, Physics Teachers
Movies, television and video games are awash with heroes, villains and their super-sized cousins. As media consumers, we are captivated by seemingly impossible feats of physical prowess. In fact, they are more than seemingly impossible — they are literally impossible. The magic of cinema coerces us to suspend disbelief and accept the impossible as plausible. How is this done?
With CGI, pulleys, wire-rigging and physics! The magic seen in
Mutant X,
Lost Girl and other programs was combined at FAST (Fight Action Stunt Team) Motion Studios in Toronto, a highly experienced international team of stunt action coordinators, artists and riggers. Students can visit the studio and experience the process first-hand. While there, they will make connections to the physics they’ve learned and will be exposed to career opportunities in a recession-proof industry.
Read More...Tags: Field Trip, Motion
March 17, 2017 Filed in:
ArticlesDave Doucette, OAPT Vice-President
doucettefamily@sympatico.ca
While teaching uniform circular motion in high school, I struggled with developing the
ac = v2/
r relationship in an intuitive and cognitively meaningful way. Geometric arguments do not resonate with students. They accept on faith but often with little interest or insight. Here is an approach that may do a better job.
Read More...Tags: Kinematics, Motion, Pedagogy
December 11, 2016 Filed in:
ArticlesJohn Berrigan, Teacher Oakville Trafalger H.S.
berriganj@hdsb.ca
In the
previous article we found the main factors that determine the thrust of a rocket engine. We rearranged the formula and determined the Impulse of the formula for rockets.
With Elon Musk discussing his Mars rocket last week,
http://www.spacex.com/mars, now is a good time to discuss how Impulse can be used to eventually determine the efficiency of a rocket engine.
Read More...Tags: Forces, Kinematics, Momentum, Motion
November 11, 2016 Filed in:
ArticlesEric Haller, OCT
rickyhaller@hotmail.com
It’s autumn, and maybe you’re looking for a new way to impress your physics students this semester. I find it easy to amaze my class by using various forms of technology in my lessons. Often our students don’t realize how tech savvy physicists need to be, picturing us using chalkboards to give lectures and not
using supercomputers at CERN or developing
video games which use physics simulations. Ok maybe I’ve never been to CERN or made a video game, but I can make my own GIFs. In this article I’m going to show you some GIFs you can use in your lessons, and also teach you how to make your own GIFs.
Read More...Tags: Motion, Projectile Motion, Technology
October 02, 2016 Filed in:
ArticlesJohn Berrigan, Teacher Oakville Trafalger H.S.
berriganj@hdsb.ca
In the
previous article we learnt how to find the largest possible delta-V that a rocket can experience. In this article, we are going to find the thrust of a rocket by using the fundamentals of conservation of momentum. This will be similar to what we did in the last article, however this time we will use variables instead specific masses and velocities. Furthermore, the cart is now a rocket, as this is rocket science!
Read More...Tags: Forces, Kinematics, Momentum, Motion
September 02, 2016 Filed in:
ArticlesMichel Enns, Teacher Runnymede CI
Michel.enns@tdsb.on.ca
I have been frustrated with gravitation simulators over the years because they stop working when the computers are updated. To avoid this, I have made one that is browser-based and will run on any device. You can find it at
www3.sympatico.ca/michael.enns. One non-standard thing that it can do is simulate the formation of a solar system with a thousand random masses.
Read More...Tags: Astronomy, Kinematics, Momentum, Motion
June 29, 2016 Filed in:
ArticlesJohn Berrigan, Teacher Oakville Trafalger H.S.
berriganj@hdsb.ca
Interest in rockets is skyrocketing due to the recent successes of SpaceX and Blue Origin, two private companies developing spaceflight. This is an ideal time to introduce students to the physics behind rockets which are an exciting illustration of the conservation of momentum and relative motion.
Read More...Tags: Momentum, Motion
February 06, 2016 Filed in:
ArticlesMargaret Scora, Teacher at M. Paul Dwyer CHS, Oshawa ON
Margaret.scora@dcdsb.ca
Taking a class to Wonderland™ to investigate force and motion can be an expensive and frustrating adventure. The local ice rink is probably only 15 minutes away for most of us, a lot cheaper, and you can be there and back in less than three hours with a whole lot of new experiences for your students to ponder and discuss.
Read More...Tags: Field Trip, Forces, Momentum, Motion
December 12, 2015 Filed in:
ArticlesGavin Kanowitz, Teacher at AY Jackson SS
gavin.kanowitz@tdsb.on.ca
The ‘Demo’ is one of the most powerful tools that physics teachers have. It can hook the students’ interest right away. If you frame the demo with a pre and post dialogue, it can also ignite their learning.
There is no hard and fast rule as to when an educator should perform a demo. I prefer using them as an intro to the topic. Other teachers choose to defer to demos as a means of solidifying a key idea at a later stage of concept development. There is certainly no shortage of demos — a quick glance at the
OAPT website will alert you to that, but what is often missing in demo descriptions is the pedagogy that surrounds the show.
Read More...Tags: Motion, Pedagogy
January 01, 2005 Filed in:
Demo CornerJohn Caranci
physix1@look.ca
This demonstration is used to introduce rotational motion by using the complex motion of a chain-saw chain. You probably have seen many demonstrations over the years but this is one that can be done with the simplest equipment: one elastic band and a sheet of newsprint.
Read More...Tags: Motion
April 01, 2004 Filed in:
Demo CornerPatrick Whippey, Department of Physics & Astronomy, The University of Western Ontario
Do we really believe Newton’s Laws? This demonstration was born many years ago when a perceptive student challenged the assertion that a body free to move always rotates about its centre of mass. This demonstration requires an air table.
Read More...Tags: Motion
February 01, 2004 Filed in:
Demo CornerPatrick Whippey, Department of Physics & Astronomy, The University of Western Ontario
Do we really believe Newton’s Laws? This demonstration was born many years ago when a perceptive student challenged the assertion that a body free to move always rotates about its centre of mass. This demonstration requires an air table.
Read More...Tags: Motion
February 01, 2010 Filed in:
Demo CornerForest Fyfe, Department of Physics and Atmospheric Physics Dalhousie University
This article is reprinted from Physics in Canada, Volume 65, No. 3, pg.141 (2009), with permission of the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP).

Illustrating the concepts of centre of mass and centre-of-mass motion to an introductory physics class can be a challenge to a physics instructor. The topic can be very mathematically complex and is not necessarily intuitively obvious. A device that demonstrates how the centre of mass of an object moves as compared to the motion of a point on the object away from the centre of mass would provide an excellent qualitative illustration of this. At Dalhousie University we have constructed just such a device, our lighted throwing sticks.
Read More...Tags: Motion
March 01, 2000 Filed in:
Demo CornerDiana Hall, Bell High School, Nepean
Diana_Hall@ocdsb.edu.on.ca
Diana Hall presents two simple demonstrations.
Read More...Tags: Forces, Motion
January 01, 2000 Filed in:
Demo CornerEd van den Berg and Rosea van den Berg, University of San Carlos, Talamban Campus, Cebu City, Philippines
edberg@durian.usc.edu.ph
This article was excerpted (with the authors’s permission) from a longer article in The Physics Teacher
(Sept. 1998, p.356-8).
What can we do to have clear and exciting lessons without a great amount of demonstration apparatus and hours of preparation each day? We present here a collection of small and quick demos that require no equipment beyond what is present in a classroom (chalk, chairs, students, books, paper, backpacks and their contents). Some are to prove something, but most are to illustrate, visualize, or simulate. These basic and well-tried ideas will stimulate students and revive the instructor who has spent a late night checking student papers. Have fun!
Read More...Tags: Kinematics, Motion, Optics
March 01, 1999 Filed in:
Demo CornerJohn Childs, Grenville Christian College, Brockville
jchilds@grenvillecc.ca
This is a good exercise to use after you’ve done kinematics, dynamics, and energy. We all talk about the kinetic and potential energy of roller coasters and their speeds, and the demonstration will let your students apply their critical thinking skills to this kind of situation. Be sure to have your students examine the setup and predict the outcome,
before you run the demo. The question is: “Which ball gets to the end of the ramp first?”
Read More...Tags: Energy, Forces, Motion
October 01, 1997 Filed in:
Demo CornerJohn Wylie, Toronto French School
jwylie@tfs.on.ca
Here are two tricks, sorry, demonstrations that you can store away for when you have a few minutes to kill and all you have available is a metre stick, or when you just feel the need to show off in front of impressionable young students. They both are opportunities to prove that a knowledge of physics is better than being young and co-ordinated.
Read More...Tags: Motion
March 01, 1996 Filed in:
Demo CornerMurray D. Kucherawy, A.B. Lucas S.S., London
Effective classroom demonstrations often require tinkering with temperamental equipment. With the permission of the editor, I would like to share a “thought demonstration” that requires no equipment, but which still makes a surprising point.
Read More...Tags: Motion
June 01, 1994 Filed in:
Demo CornerJohn Wylie, The Toronto French School
Here is a good demonstration that can be used in its simplest form to show stable and unstable equilibria or, in a more advanced version, to illustrate some finer points about moments of inertia and angular motion. The material needed could not be simpler. You need a board. There are no special requirements here except that the board be rectangular and have three distinctly different dimensions. In a pinch, I have used a good-sized physics text book held closed by a strong elastic. Most brief cases work and if students feel lucky, they can try out their calculators.
Read More...Tags: Motion
March 01, 1994 Filed in:
Demo CornerJohn Earnshaw, Trent University
The author presents three demonstrations: a large pendulum, the centre of mass of a person, and the magnetic force on a beam of electrons.
Read More...Tags: Forces, Magnetism, Motion
October 01, 1992 Filed in:
Demo CornerPauline Plooard, Fenelon Falls Secondary School
Two quick demonstrations from Pauline Plooard.
Read More...Tags: Motion, Pedagogy, Waves and Sound
March 01, 1990 Filed in:
Demo CornerPatrick Whippey, Department of Physics, University of Western Ontario
Two intriguing demonstrations from Patrick Whippey.
Read More...Tags: Motion
November 01, 1988 Filed in:
Demo CornerT. Dean Gaily, University of Western Ontario
A simple lecture demonstration to illustrate that some objects do ‘fall’ with an acceleration greater than 9.8 m/s
2 is constructed from two pieces of 2.5 cm × 15 cm lumber approximately 1 m in length (1” × 6” × 39”), hinged together at one end. A small marble placed in a notch at or near the end of the “falling” board can be made to fall slower than the board and land in the cup strategically placed on the falling board.
Read More...Tags: Forces, Motion
