Family history projects have been used extensively in social studies education. They help to personalize history and mediate an awareness of self in relation to others. This article details how one such project, implemented in a teacher education program, promoted dialogues of respect and fostered community among pre-service teachers. It includes…

The author experienced the introduction of the Internet as a high school student. Reflecting on that experience, he now realizes that he did not understand the possibilities offered by chat rooms, instant messaging, and other Internet-based communication tools to increase sociopolitical connectedness. As the teacher of an eleventh grade social…

The recent National Assessment of Educational Progress in Geography revealed that few American students can identify locations of current events, the scale of those events, or why those events are important. Social studies educators have found that by incorporating emerging technologies into their classroom--such as Geographic Information Systems…

"Plan B: Mobilizing to Save Civilization," has much to offer nearly any social studies classroom from 9th grade to college levels. The film is based on Lester R. Brown's book by the same name and is the 12th episode in the Journey to Planet Earth public television series. The film illustrates the complexity of climate change and its connections to…

The increase in the world record height achieved in pole vaulting can be related to the improved ability of the athletes, in terms of their fitness and technique, and to the change in materials used to construct the pole. For example in 1960 there was a change in vaulting pole construction from bamboo to glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP)…

This paper deals with effects that appear on photographs of rotating objects when taken by a photo finish camera, a rolling shutter camera or a computer scanner. These effects are very similar to Roget's palisade illusion. A simple quantitative analysis of the images is also provided. The effects are explored using a computer scanner in a way that…

This paper describes a set of experiments aimed at overcoming some of the difficulties experienced by students learning about the topics of moments of inertia and simple harmonic motion, both of which are often perceived to be complex topics amongst students during their first-year university courses. By combining both subjects in a discussion…

During the past few decades, a wide consensus has been reached in the community of science educators that it is almost unimaginable to conduct a quality science education without including the history and philosophy of science in some form in the science curriculum, and this is especially the case for physics education (Matthews 1994). However, in…

Bulbs are considered to be very inefficient sources of light. Bulbs give light and heat. As we use them for a long time, especially in winter, a large part of the heat produced by bulbs lowers the power consumption of the heating system. In this paper the problem of the real efficiency of a bulb is solved when both the lighting and heating effects…

Measuring the refractive index "n" of a substance or medium is part of every introductory physics course. Various approaches to determine this index have been developed over the years based on the different ways light reflects and transmits in the medium. In this paper, the authors would like to present a simple geometrical derivation of the…

Paradoxes have played great instructive roles in many cultures. They provide an excellent paradigm for teaching concepts that require deep reflection. In this article, the authors present two different paradoxes related to the length contraction in special relativity and explain their resolution. They hope that these two Gedanken experiments and…

In the 1960s, Tanzanian student Erasto Mpemba and his teacher published a paper with the title "Cool?" in this journal (Mpemba and Osborne 1969 "Phys. Educ." 4 172-5). They claimed that hot water freezes more quickly than cold water. The paper not only led to a wave of discussion, and more publications about this topic, but also to a whole series…

We present a sensitive diffusion cloud chamber which does not require any radioactive sources. A major difference from commonly used chambers is the use of a heat sink as its bottom plate. The result of a performance test of the chamber is given. (Contains 8 figures.)

The speed of light, or more generally, the speed of electromagnetic waves, seems to be incredibly high. 300 000 km s[superscript -1] is far greater than the typical speed of a car, a plane or even a rocket, which is just several kilometres per second. It is thus natural that we treat the speed of light as infinite in everyday life. It appears,…

Astronomy and astrophysics are very popular with pupils, but the experimental work they can do tends to be rather limited. The search for life elsewhere in the Universe ("exobiology") has received an enormous boost since the detection of a rapidly increasing number of planets ("exoplanets") orbiting other stars in our galaxy. Recently (March…