Archive for December 2007
Apology to Students: Matlab from Hell
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: December 27, 2007
- In: Education | guy clark | John Prine | Matlab | Music | Steve Earle | timefillers | youtube
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To every student who ever gave up Physics – especially those who left my own class over the years; I feel your pain. My very last class in 2007 was involved an experience just like this with Alex and his calculator trying to use the formula for geostationary satellites. I’m not so old that I [...]
Junior Cert Science Investigations
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: December 20, 2007
Our third years have started their junior cert investigations. The physics version is to compare the insulating ability of different materials. Seems very basic, in fact too simple to qualify as an investigation at this level. Until you try it out. I don’t have third years this year but I walked in to PO’s class [...]
The Stanford Prison Experiment
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: December 20, 2007
There are some things which are worth knowing which are outside the realm of Physics. I have often thought it questionable to brand a specific generation of Germans as morally (and by implication genetically) inferior because of their role in the holocaust. It’s not to excuse what happened, but rather to acknowledge that if you or [...]
Ten Great Ideas
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: December 16, 2007
Been thinking about my previous posting. What are the ten great ideas in Science that we don’t emphasise? The average student remembers bugger-all about science, but if we were told there were ten things that a student had to remember, what would they be? 1. Kinetic Theory – Everything is made up of atoms and [...]
Where does the ‘stuff’ in trees come from?
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: December 16, 2007
- In: Education | misconceptions | Physics | Science
- 1 Comment
learner.org is an interesting site which “uses media and telecommunications to advance excellent teaching in American schools.” One of the issues they address is the area of misconceptions in Science. This is a wonderful video which asks where does the material that makes up trees come from. College graduates from Harvard and MIT were asked [...]
Some nice Modern Physics resources
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: December 13, 2007
- In: Education | Science | teachers tv
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I think my first post here was on teachers.tv. They have just released some new gems on particles, presented by Brian Cox. They include The Forces of Nature, The Building Blocks of Matter and The Hunt for the Higgs. Some of these include interviews with Murray Gell-Mann. Follow this up with an entertaining presentation from [...]
Pressure and Boiling Point
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: December 13, 2007
- In: dodgy experiments | Physics | pressure | youtube
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I’m in the middle of writing of up reports (who isn’t?) and don’t have a lot of free time, but a couple of times this week I have tried to get the Pressure and Boiling Point demonstration up and running. I figure that as a so-called experienced teacher I should be able to work this [...]
We are muppets
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: December 9, 2007
Wouldn’t it be nice if once a year every teacher had to take a little time to think about what they had achieved in the previous twelve months. Did it tally with what we wanted to achieve? Did we have any objective in mind? We become so swamped by the day-to-day issues we rarely (if [...]
Magnets are so cool
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: December 5, 2007
- In: Education | magnets | Physics | Science
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Magnets are possibly the coolest thing on this planet. Einstein was fascinated by them, as is every kid who comes across them. Not only in Junior Cert but also in Leaving Cert. We just don’t do enough with them. I have to admit to being just a tad obsessed with them myself. There is a [...]
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