The Arduino microcontroller is currently one of the favorite tools of makers, and many teachers have used it in teaching or experiments. In addition, light-emitting diode (LED) smart lighting is the worldwide trend in lighting. There are many teaching demonstrations or applications of color addition using LEDs. Furthermore, the Internet of Things…

Newton's laws are a ubiquitous topic in introductory physics instruction. One common problem involves asking what will happen if you stick your finger into a cup of water sitting on a scale. A way to solve the problem would be to first recognize that the water exerts a buoyant force upward on the finger, which students can recognize as being the…

In this paper, we discuss a demonstration we have been performing for years with students from different levels, from physics students from our university to high school students in some talks aimed at encouraging them to study science. It provides visualization of Brewster's angle in an ingenious way using a "loaded" liquid crystal…

Recognized as one of the most beautiful experiments of all time, the oil drop experiment performed by Robert Millikan and his graduate students (primarily Harvey Fletcher) is a standard in the repertoire of experiments performed by undergraduate physics students. However, "as a teaching lab it does not enjoy a good reputation for three…

Mobile phones are a widely used platform for educational apps, mobile health, and a variety of chemical tests. Here, we are working on a mobile phone-based physics lab (mPhysics) that uses a mobile phone's capabilities to run simple physics experiments and demonstrations. While a mobile phone can be used to analyze magnetic and optical properties…

Data analysis and interpretation has always played a fundamental role in the scientific curricula of high school students. The spread of digitalization has further increased the number of learning environments whereby this topic can be effectively taught: as a matter of fact, the ever-growing diffusion of data science across diverse sectors of…

During the August 21, 2017, solar eclipse, high school students measured secondary cosmic ray flux using QuarkNet detectors. These students conducted experiments examining cosmic ray flux, shower, speed of muons, and muon lifetime using QuarkNet cosmic ray muon detectors (CRMDs). These detectors measure muon flux of momenta greater than ~2 GeV, a…

A learner's perception of what a career in physics is like has a major impact on their decision to pursue physics professionally. This decision can also be influenced by a high school student's awareness of issues concerning diversity within the physics community. We surveyed current high school physics students and investigated their perception…

This article describes a simple way to introduce nanomaterials using the presence of carbon nanodots (CNDs) in widely available food. Budweiser® beer and Coca-Cola®, commercial foods that are commonly accessible, were utilized to demonstrate the optical property of nanoparticles. Specifically, green and violet laser pointers were employed for the…

In this article, we present a low-cost lab experience, enhanced by new technologies and easy to execute. The objective of the experiment is to explore the moment of inertia of a fidget spinner quantitatively. Our choice was to integrate the teaching of physics with the use of a popular toy, the fidget spinner, very popular among young people and…

Science labs should promote reasoning that resembles the work that scientists do. However, this is often not the case. We present a lab in which students strive to find out which of two models best describes a physics experiment. The quantification of measurement uncertainties--another topic that is often neglected in high school…

The Ball Bearing High Voltage generator is a fairly simple and transparent apparatus that can serve as a tool to motivate conceptual descriptions and calculations in electrostatics that are normally presented to our students in a rather dry and matter-of-fact fashion. For example, instead of posing a problem in the typical textbook form of…

With support from QuarkNet, high school students investigated the effect of overburden on muon flux by collecting data from Fermilab's Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) tunnel. Muon flux varied due to a change in overburden created by a 103-meter deep access shaft. A profile of muon flux as a function of distance from the access…

In high school and elementary college physics labs the measurement of vertical distance is often required. Measuring the distance an object falls or the vertical displacement of springs in a Hooke's law experiment are commonplace. Determining these distances to perhaps a millimeter or two of precision is difficult without an expensive height gauge…

Many high schools, two-year colleges, and universities offer a conceptual physics course for non-science students who have to take a basic science course. The students often enter the course unmotivated and may eventually withdraw. So, how do we make the course interesting enough for these students to gain the knowledge we desire and, more…