Conservation of Energy « Physics & Physical Science Demos, Labs, & Projects for High School Teachers

Posts Tagged ‘Conservation of Energy’

Good Intentions, Bad Lab

Posted by: Scott on: February 28, 2012

In: Lab & Classroom Equipment | Lab Experiments | Physical Science
6 Comments

A couple of weeks ago we did a lab straight from the textbook. (Here is the Lab Instructions, typed up and put it into my words.) I’d been looking for a good Conservation of Energy Lab. I wanted to use the Vernier devices, but there wasn’t anything in their book that I liked. Rather than [...]

Tags: Conservation of Energy, conservation of energy lab, conservation of mechanical energy, holt physics

Conservation of Energy Lab

Posted by: Scott on: March 11, 2010

In: Lab & Classroom Equipment | Lab Experiments | Physical Science | Reference Sites
4 Comments

I quite literally pulled this together one morning after realizing I didn’t have a lab in this chapter. The kids have been struggling with the concept of Conservation of Energy. Putting up the Physlet for the skate park really helped. I like that you can display a bar graph of the energy in the system [...]

Tags: Conservation of Energy, Kinetic Energy, Potential Energy, Simulation

Conservation of Energy

Posted by: Scott on: July 23, 2008

In: Activities | Demonstrations | Lab Experiments | Physical Science
2 Comments

This is an experiment I did in my Conceptual Physics class to demonstrate Conservation of Energy. I take a clean plastic peanut butter jar and put in about an inch of copper BB’s. We then wrap the jar in a towel and have a student start shaking the jar as hard as they can. The [...]

Tags: Conservation of Energy, Friction

Search

About this Blog

Hi, I'm Scott. I teach in a charter school in the city of Philadelphia. I started this blog to help me keep track of the things I want to do in my classroom and it kind of got away from me. I still use most of the lessons and activities you see here, so I know they work. Feel free to email me with questions, I'm happy to help.

It's 2011/2012 which means my courses are different once again. When I first started, I taught two courses, Physics and Conceptual Physics (which is physics-lite). Year 6 at this school has seen a maturing of our science program, we are offering many more science electives. There is no more Conceptual Physics (oh yeah!!). I've got two sections of Physics, one of Calculus, and this year two sections of my STEM elective - now called Robotics & Engineering.

As always, I'll be adding activities, ideas and insights as I come up with them. I also update old posts with new information as I redo the activities. Many of these activities are good for summer camp and just experimenting at home, so dig in and please feel free to add your own ideas.

Most importantly, comment and/or contact me. I'm here all the time since, like you, I'm always working on lesson plans, labs, and other activities to engage my students. I am never too proud to borrow a good idea that works. Enjoy.

Follow

Follow “Physics & Physical Science Demos, Labs, & Projects for High School Teachers”

Powered by WordPress.com