Light rays refract when passing through pockets of transparent fluids with different indices of refraction such as ordinary air pockets of varying temperature. This phenomenon makes night stars twinkle, distorts views above hot asphalt roads and hot barbeque grills, and provides an opportunity for visualizing the normally invisible movement of…

The objective of this study is to design a temperature measurement system based on a non-contact method using a sensor camera from a webcam. The material being measured is nickel wire given an electrical current of 4.5 A-6.5 A with an interval of 0.5 A. The temperature measurement is based upon the measurement of the average pixel value…

Providing instant visual feedback, thermal imaging cameras are becoming more and more popular tools not only in industrial applications, but also in physics education. Continuously decreasing prices, modules compatible with smart portable devices, and intuitive operation make thermal measurements available for schools and attractive for students.…

We present several applications of the particle camera MX-10 in different radiation environments, leading to strikingly different observed patterns and consequently particle composition as well as recorded dose. We describe the measurements of the radiation background, cosmic muons direction analysis and the detection of alpha particles in a…

In this research, the teaching of mechanical waves was realized with inquiry-based learning; the aim was to determine the changes in students' conceptual understanding of spring, water, and sound waves. It was designed as action research. The study group comprised 58 upper-secondary school students enrolled in 10th grade at an Anatolian…

I am writing this article to raise awareness of burst mode photography as a fun and engaging way for teachers and students to experience physics demonstration activities. In the context of digital photography, "burst mode" means taking multiple photographs per second, and this is a feature that now comes standard on most digital…

The difficulties students have in blending mathematics and physics are here analyzed, by focusing on the issue of a convergent series. We present an experimental and a theoretical analysis of some phenomena which can be investigated employing series, as the bouncing marble and Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the turtle. Measurements were carried…

In the last decade, a powerful tool has been given to physics teachers to visualize thermodynamic phenomena. Thermal imaging cameras are fascinating devices opening the world of (even small) temperature changes and being able to uncover hidden manifestations of many processes around us. This paper describes a few qualitative thermal imaging…

This year while awaiting the arrival of the AAPT High School Physics Photo Contest poster, I developed an idea for my physics teacher education course that used the photo contest in a new context. While using an external source like a photograph to learn physics is not new to physics education, this article describes how we used the foundational…

Movies are mostly viewed for entertainment. Mixing entertainment and physics gets students excited as we look at a famous movie scene from a different point of view. The following is a link to a fragment from the 2010 motion picture "Inception": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3tBBhYJeAw. The following problem, based on images in facing…

Raising the profile of physics is particularly important in girls' schools. Here we describe a range of astronomical activities and observations that we have used, which we hope will inspire teachers at other schools to do likewise.

A simple but accurate method for measuring the Earth's radius using a video camera is described. A video camera was used to capture a shadow rising up the wall of a tall building at sunset. A free program called ImageJ was used to measure the time it took the shadow to rise a known distance up the building. The time, distance and length of…

This paper describes a simple activity for plotting and characterizing the light curve from an exoplanet transit event by way of differential photometry analysis. Using free digital imaging software, participants analyse a series of telescope images with the goal of calculating various exoplanet parameters, including size, orbital radius and…

Traditionally, teachers assess students' physics understanding through lab activities, responses to open-ended word problems, and tests. But there is another way to measure student understanding, one in which students apply their learning to the world around them. This article shows how to implement student portfolios, which allow students to…

Research has demonstrated that many students and some teachers do not consistently apply the conservation of energy principle when analyzing mechanical scenarios. In observing elementary and secondary teachers engaged in learning activities that require tracking and conserving energy, we find that challenges to energy conservation often arise in…