The simulation illustrates an Atwood's machine, which is simply two blocks connected by a string passing over a pulley. In this version of the simulation, the mass of the pulley is negligible - that leads to the tension being the same everywhere in the string.
Modeling traffic data is important for urban planning, creating transportation systems, and even predicting how much foot traffic a retail store can expect in a given day. This genre of dynamic data science activities could be classified as “finding a needle in a haystack,” giving students a chance to mine big data to make insights about traffic use.
According to the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, about 400,000 people used the BART system daily in 2018. In BARTy, students investigate BART data from 2015 to learn about passenger use and explore traffic patterns. The Teacher Guide includes a game-like investigation to locate a “mystery meeting,” and suggests ways to help students figure out peak passenger use, popular stations, and the impact of events in San Francisco on BART usage.
Play with objects on a teeter totter to learn about balance. Test what you've learned by trying the Balance Challenge game.
How do you know if a chemical equation is balanced? What can you change to balance an equation? Play a game to test your ideas!
The simulation shows a ballistics cart. If the cart is at rest on a horizontal surface, it will shoot a ball straight up in the air, and catch the ball again. What if, as in this simulation, the cart is traveling at a constant velocity horizontally, instead? Will the ball land ahead of the cart, in the cart, or behind the cart? Note that the cart fires the ball straight up, with respect to the cart, when the middle of the cart passes the small vertical trigger on the track.
Use the buttons to select the different modes (whether there is a tunnel or not, and whether to show the velocity vectors).
Experiment with a helium balloon, a hot air balloon, or a rigid sphere filled with different gases. Discover what makes some balloons float and others sink.
Students explore static electricity by rubbing a simulated balloon on a sweater. As they view the charges in the sweater, balloon, and adjacent wall, they gain an understanding of charge transfer. This item is part of a larger collection of simulations developed by the Physics Education Technology project (PhET). The simulations are animated, interactive, and game-like environments.
Why does a balloon stick to your sweater? Rub a balloon on a sweater, then let go of the balloon and it flies over and sticks to the sweater. View the charges in the sweater, balloons, and the wall.
Explore the origin of energy bands in crystals of atoms. The structure of these bands determines how materials conduct electricity.
Explore the origin of energy bands in crystals of atoms. The structure of these bands determines how materials conduct electricity.
Beginning econometrics students often have an uneven preparation in statistics. The simulation gives students a clearer understanding of the behavior of OLS estimators.
Look inside a resistor to see how it works. Increase the battery voltage to make more electrons flow though the resistor. Increase the resistance to block the flow of electrons. Watch the current and resistor temperature change.
Look inside a battery to see how it works. Select the battery voltage and little stick figures move charges from one end of the battery to the other. A voltmeter tells you the resulting battery voltage.
Look inside a battery to see how it works. Select the battery voltage and little stick figures move charges from one end of the battery to the other. A voltmeter tells you the resulting battery voltage.
I have always been struck by the beauty and mystery of the astronomical universe. Recently I decided that it might be good to evoke these qualities in some way that might reach our students. And then I remembered that, many years ago, I had heard a piece of music that effected me in the same way. So I put them together. You can see the result at
https://youtu.be/U7XEhRn_Kno
You might find it helpful in your teaching.
George Greenstein
The PhET project at the University of Colorado creates "fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena." This particular one deals with Beer's Law. "The thicker the glass, the darker the brew, the less the light that passes through." Make colorful concentrated and dilute solutions and explore how much light they absorb and transmit using a virtual spectrophotometer! The simulation is also paired with a teachers' guide and related resources from PhET. The simulation is also available in multiple languages.
Explore bending of light between two media with different indices of refraction. See how changing from air to water to glass changes the bending angle. Play with prisms of different shapes and make rainbows.
This resource consists of a Java applet and expository text. The applet is a simulation of Bertrand's experiment: a random chord on a circle The event of interest is whether the length of the chord is larger than the length of the inscribed equilateral triangle. Three models for generating the random chord can be used.
This resource consists of a Java applet and expository text. The applet illustrates Bayesian estimation of the probability of heads for a coin. The prior beta distribution, true probability of heads, and the sample size can be specified. The applet shows the posterior beta distribution.
Watch beta decay occur for a collection of nuclei or for an individual nucleus.