Tag Archive for: teaching

Primary Science Coordinators’ Forum #3.1

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Part of NUSTEM’s offer to primary schools in the north east is our Primary Science Coordinators’ Forum. Each half term, science leaders from primary schools across the area come to our Think Lab at Northumbria University for two hours of skills sharing, networking and high-quality STEM CPD. We’re in our third year of sessions, and it’s about time I shared what we’ve been up to. Here’s a run-down of our most recent meeting, which was held on Tuesday 21st November. If you’re interested in joining the forum (it’s free!), email me.

Part 1: Background and that awkward “getting to know each other” bit

Our first meeting this academic year, so there were a few new faces in the room. This being a skills sharing/networking forum, it’s important (I think) that we go through the basics: Who are we? What do we do? Why are we here? One day I’ll find a less awkward way of doing this. I also shared a bit of background about who and what NUSTEM is.

Part 2: Sharing Science

We have a wealth of experience in STEM education at NUSTEM, but so many good ideas come from teachers working in schools. In this session, teachers shared some of their more creative science resources and approaches. In the spirit of sharing good practice, here they are:

  • Greg (Oakfield Infants) – at the start of the year, groups of children in Greg’s Y1 class adopt trees in the school grounds. Throughout the year, they take photos and note changes to their tree. The exercise also inspires creative writing, poetry and artwork whilst covering the seasonal changes part of the science curriculum.
  • Mark (Carville) – shared an activity he’d seen using laces and cocktail sticks to discuss DNA in Y6.
  • Denise (Oakfield) – Denise’s class explored the digestive system using a pair of tights and then created a comic strip about the topic.
  • Ellie – Ellie’s class have been exploring rock types using different chocolate bars – you can find a similar activity from the National Parks UK here.
  • Kaye (St Charles RC) – Kaye’s school is using Imperial College’s Reach Out for free, quick science CPD for her staff. Kaye has also been exploring life cycles, by bringing mealworms into her classroom and changing different conditions of their habitats. It takes a few weeks, but they eventually turn into beetles. I’ve found a useful worksheet for this activity here.
  • Karen (Battle Hill) – Karen shared a free online resource from the Wellcome Trust called Explorify. It has great starters and activities for getting science discussion into the classroom.
  • Joe (NUSTEM) – I shared two activities, a Turtles and Dogs activity using soft toys to explore adaptation and inheritance with Y6, and a new activity with the working title: What’s in the Box?. I’ll post a link to this activity shortly.

Part 3: Cubetto

Our office fell in love with these little Cubetto robots, which arrived over the summer holidays, and we’ve been itching to get them into the hands of our science coordinators to see what wonderful ideas they might come up with. We spent half an hour playing with them last night and have some exciting thoughts about their use in the classroom. We’re holding further Cubetto exploration sessions next week with Computing and EYFS leads in our partner schools with a view to developing a suite of workshops that will allow EYFS children to explore coding in new and exciting ways. The plan is to loan our army of robots out to schools from the New Year.

Part 4: Embedding careers in primary science

The NUSTEM project builds on the findings of the ASPIRES report (more about that here). Using the Science Capital approach, we’re looking to increase young children’s understanding of what STEM is and where it can lead. The coordinators in our last session spent some time discussing an approach for embedding STEM careers into primary science lessons. This is a project and supporting resource that we’re looking to roll out into school in the New Year. If you are interested in finding out more, drop me an email.

Finally: Come and join us

We’re always looking for new members. If you’d like to join the group (it’s free and you get sandwiches) please email me. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 24 January 2018, 5-7pm.

To download the presentation notes from the session, click here.

A-Level Physics teachers: your thoughts welcome

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A few months ago, we made a film of an A-level core practical: measuring g via the free-fall method. Many teachers responded to our invitation to comment, and to our shameless request for recommendations for funders. Well… that worked. Thanks for your kind words, and thanks to your kind words we’re making more of these films. We’re not yet revealing the funder, but we can reveal the first three (or four) practicals we’re filming. We’d also like your help again.

We’re filming next weekend, 21st/22nd May, and we’d be delighted if these films could reflect your experience with practicals you’ve completed, your thoughts about ones you’ve yet to teach, and so on. We’ve a crack team of advisors and supporters already involved, but nothing beats the broad experience of teachers across the UK (and internationally).

So: here are the outlines of the films we’re planning to make. Please leave a comment below if you’ve any pertinent thoughts. It’s extremely helpful if you sign your comments with your real name, and note your affiliations (ie. school, that you’re a teacher / head of department / examiner etc) if appropriate. As before, the films are intended primarily to support teachers, but may be of use to students for revision purposes.

Laser diffraction

  • Introduction to traditional two-slit diffraction apparatus, with recap of explanation.
  • Plotting slit/screen distance vs. slit spacing.
  • Discussion of laser safety issues and suppliers.
  • Suggestions around practicalities, and the value of the practical for exploring issues of experiment design.
  • Alternative arrangement using a wire rather than traditional double slit.
  • Second alternative using diffraction gratings and vertical arrangement.
  • (possibly – this film’s already getting quite long!) third alternative using diffraction from a CD, as suggested by OCR.
  • Discussion of historical context and significance.

Finding the EMF and internal resistance of a battery

  • Conceptual basis of internal resistance; review of relationship between EMF, terminal potential difference, current and internal resistance.
  • Apparatus, using multimeters, variable resistor, bare wire contacts.
  • Variations, including array of known resistors; switched contact; analogue meters.
  • Comparison of internal resistance of different battery types.
  • Discussion of value of this practical for exploring key lab skills, including careful but quick working.

Discharging a capacitor through a resistor

  • Using a data logger to explore capacitor behaviour.
  • Initial verification of \(V = V_0 e^{-t/RC}\); demonstrating that voltage decay half-life is constant, and the time taken to decay to \(1/e\) of the original value.
  • Manipulation of \(V = V_0 e^{-t/RC}\) to a form comparable with \(y = mx + c\); processing and plotting data accordingly.
  • Low-budget version of practical using voltmeter and stopclock, and with hand-processing of data.
  • Extend the practical to finding the value of an unknown capacitor.
  • Discussion of error.

Force on a current-carrying conductor in a magnetic field

  • The standard ammeter and balance arrangement.
  • Sequence of
  • Determining magnetic field strength.
  • Alternative arrangement with U-shaped wire segment.

Thanks in advance for all your comments and suggestions. Inevitably, we won’t be able to incorporate everything everybody suggests, but if you’ve come across a brilliant way of covering one of these practicals which we’ve not mentioned above, or have thoughts on aspects your students find particularly challenging – we’ll do our best to incorporate your ideas.

Final note: this post was written by Jonathan. Hello. I’m the film-maker behind all these videos, and while I am technically a physicist, I last saw most of these practicals in my own A-level studies more than 25 years ago. Any glaring howlers in the above are due to my misunderstanding of the scripts, and you can be reasonably confident that the many teachers involved in the filming will politely roll their eyes before we commit film-based crimes against physics.

Teacher Subject Specialism Training: Secondary Physics

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In an attempt to address the shortage of secondary physics teachers, the Department for Education is backing training to support non-physics-specialist teachers (or teachers wishing to return to the profession) in making the transition. A range of training opportunities are available, primarily courses with multiple sessions through the school year from October 2015.

In the North-East, such courses are being offered by George Stephenson High School in Newcastle, The Academy at Shotton Hall, Peterlee (PDF link), The Hermitage Academy in Chester-Le-Street (PDF link), and Carmel College in Darlington (PDF link). We’ve added the first session in the George Stephenson course to our events calendar primarily because we’re hosting it here at Think Lab, but do explore the different opportunities available.

Also be sure to follow the link to the Government page about the scheme. The downloadable training directory there is a bit buggy for me this afternoon, but there appear to be even more opportunities in the North-East than those we highlight above. There are also multiple courses for Maths specialism.

 

 

Is “The Martian” accurate? Does it matter?

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It’s been a big couple of weeks for the planet Mars. Two weeks ago it was the star of our North East skills stand, last Monday NASA announced they’ve found evidence of flowing water, and now it’s the setting for the big-budget rescue of Matt Damon in the movie, The Martian.

Being both a teacher and a movie fan, I’m always curious as to how I can use films to educate students. I know a lot of people worry about the scientific accuracy of films; in fact there are whole websites dedicated to exposing bad movie science, but I wonder if a movie like The Martian has other things to offer. Firstly, it’s a film that celebrates intelligence and problem solving. The film’s heroes have to use their brains to save the day, a relative rarity in a Hollywood blockbuster. Interstellar was praised for its scientific content (thanks to consultant Kip Thorne), but still ultimately boils down to “love saves the day”. The Martian bucks the trend and is a great demonstration to students of how a scientific mind-set can be our best weapon in the face of the most challenging of problems.

Secondly, I think that the insight into a large scientific organisation, in this case NASA, will help students to appreciate the wide-range of different careers onto which STEM qualifications can lead. In this film we see every type of scientist outlined by the People Like Me project which is part of the WISE campaign which promotes women in STEM. The aim of this project is to demonstrate the different roles available to people who study STEM; it’s not all men in white coats. It is the combination of these different skill-sets working together in The Martian that ultimately saves the day. Thankfully, The Martian also has a suitably diverse cast which helps to break down a few stereotypes about the types of people who work in STEM.

If we decide to use films in the classroom, I think we need to be very clear as to what our ultimate goal is. If we are using them to illustrate or teach scientific concepts, I think we must be very careful about the accuracy of the scientific content. On the other hand, if we want to show our pupils the value of a STEM education and inspire them to continue towards STEM careers, I think films like The Martian, despite the odd inaccuracy, can be very useful.

Another favourite of mine is Contagion (also with Matt Damon!), for being similarly diverse and not afraid to celebrate intelligence. What films or TV shows have/would you show in the classroom?

Work with us?

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Think Physics is looking for another Outreach Specialist in Secondary education to work with the current team and extend the range of activities we can offer to secondary schools.

We’re looking for someone who wants to share a love of physics (and other STEM subjects) with others, who is determined to make a difference in the lives of the young people they work with, and who can communicate complex ideas in simple ways.  If that’s you, then we’d love to hear from you.

It’s important for you to know that we are a very flexible team, and so you need to be prepared to ‘muck-in’ with the many different aspects of Think Physics.

The post will be part-time (0.4 FTE) and a fixed term one-year contract.

For more details visit the University Jobs page.

Application deadline: 12 noon on 8th April 2015

Tag Archive for: teaching

Simple harmonic motion

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Using the pendulum method to find a value for the acceleration due to gravity, and one approach to quantifying the uncertainty in the measurement.

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Inverse Square Law

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Approaches to the radioactive source practical, and a related activity which can help clarify some of the core ideas.

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Force on a Current-Carrying Wire

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An unusual approach to the classic ‘F=BIL’ practical, setting your students a puzzle.

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Diffraction

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Careful measurements and some lateral thinking in this comparison of double slit and diffraction grating approaches to determining the wavelength of laser light.

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Discharging a Capacitor

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Processing data and the confident handling of natural logarithms, in this guide to two approaches to the core practical for A-level physics.

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Measuring g via Free Fall

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Four different approaches to measuring g: try several and prompt your students to think about how they differ in terms of accuracy and repeatability.

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Physics with Food

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One of the things I love about physics is that you can find it everywhere.  And more importantly, the ideas that we teach at school can be easily demonstrated using everyday objects.

As part of an IOP day for teachers, I put together a series of demos and experiments that all used food.   They were chosen because they could be used to introduce or explore different physics topics.

We moved magnetic grapes, poured density cocktails and ate chocolate.

Layered drink

Density cocktail

More importantly (if there can be anything more important than eating chocolate) we also discussed how we would use the demos and experiments in class.  Although many of the demos fit well into one or other keystage, the teachers suggested different ways that they could be used.

I’ve put together the activity guides here: Food Sheets Combined (pdf)

We also looked at the Rethink Your Drink campaign from California Department of Public Health.  This links common soft drinks with the amount of sugar in the bottle or can.  It can be used in physics to introduce the idea of energy stored in foods and in PSHE to look at healthy diets.

ColaSugar

Comparing sweetener and sugar in diet and normal cola drinks

PSTT2016

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Presentations, notes and resources from the Primary Science Teaching Trust Conference, Belfast, June 2016.

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A-Level Physics Required Practicals

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Films and resources to support the required practicals – help us decide what to do next!

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