In the fall of 2011, Park Forest Middle School (PFMS) students approached the STEM faculty with numerous questions regarding the popular television show Myth Busters, which detailed Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, and inventor, Archimedes. Two episodes featured attempts to test historical accounts that Archimedes developed a death ray…

A pair of fine tweezers and a steady hand may well be enough to pick up a grain of sand, but what would you use to hold something hundreds of times smaller still, the size of only one micron? The answer is to use a device that is not mechanical in nature but that relies instead on the tiny forces that light exerts on small particles: "optical…

Presents notes on three physics experiments on (1) light and lenses, (2) determination of the pVT surface of a freon, and (3) use of an eyepiece with microscopes and telescopes. (RH)

Photographs illustrate several principles of physics which can be observed in everyday situations. (CP)

Lists several ideas for experiments for the amateur scientist to try or design. The list covers a wide range of topics; sound, mechanics, thermodynamics, fluids, optics, and electrostatics. (GA)

This resource manual focuses on physics labs that relate to the world around us and utilize simple equipment and situations. Forty-five laboratories are included that relate to thermodynamics, electricity, magnetism, dynamics, optics, wave transmission, centripetal force, and atomic physics. Each lab has three sections. The first section…

This course of study is aligned with the California State Science Framework and provides students with the physics content needed to become scientifically and technologically literate and prepared for post-secondary science education. Framework themes incorporated into the course of study include patterns of change, evolution, energy, stability,…