Adding Mentos to an open bottle of Diet Coke can produce a fountain of liquid and froth extending several metres high. This activity can engage a wide audience of learners in a relevant and meaningful way, provide a model for creative science teaching, and help to develop learners' attitudes towards school science as a subject. In this paper, the…

In order to create student interest and promote new connections to the understanding of fundamental physics concepts, there is a need for new approaches and methods that are both contemporary and relevant. Dr Skateboard's Action Science, a curriculum supplement comprising video instruction and classroom activities, is an example that focuses on…

This paper discusses the concept of scaling and its biological and engineering applications. Scaling, in a scientific context, means proportional adjustment of the dimensions of an object so that the adjusted and original objects have similar shapes yet different dimensions. The paper provides an example of a hands-on, minds-on activity on scaling…

This paper reports a study on elementary students' ideas regarding changes in mass associated with melting. An open-ended probe was designed and distributed to fifth-grade students (n = 230). In addition, 50 students were asked their reasons behind predictions on mass change. The written responses indicate that, despite conventional teaching,…

A photocopier or scanner can be used to produce not only the standard motion graphs of physics, but a variety of other graphs that resemble gravitational and electrical fields. This article presents a starting point for exploring scanner graphics, which brings together investigation in art and design, physics, mathematics, and information…