On Friday, I was so pleased to be able to return to one of my favorite days of the year, High-Interest Day at Brookfield Elementary School. This is a day where I have been able to bring the concepts of physics to k-5 graders. You may be asking yourself, "Elementary students doing physics?" YES! Not just experimenting, but understanding the concepts behind the physics of electricity and sound. This is a very special day I have had the opportunity to be involved in since 2017. So, how are we able to bring the concepts of electricity and sound traditionally taught to high school 11th and 12th graders to the elementary level? There are a few keys 1) make it a hands-on experience 2) remove the mathematical calculations and make it practical. In the past, I had the luck of bringing a handful of my physics students with me to guide the elementary students through the concepts that they had learned over the course of the year. But in my new role as a Teaching and Learning Speciali
In 2 weeks, my school year will be half over. Since we are on the block, I will have a whole new group of students and will be starting my courses fresh. As I think back on some of my big ideas from the summer that I failed to follow through with, I think about Newton’s First Law of Motion. Newton’s First Law of Motion states that Every object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it. This law has also been paraphrased as An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion. I prefer to state it this way in my physics course An object’s motion will only change if acted on by an unbalanced force. What does this mean in a practical sense? If you are standing at rest, you have forces acting on you that are balanced, or cancel each other out. There is gravity pulling you down, and the ground pushing you up. The forces are equal in size and balanc