The determination of the speed of sound in air is a classical experiment, usually performed with a resonance tube apparatus. The measured value can be checked against Eq. (1), which describes the temperature dependence of the speed of sound in dry air. A modern implementation of this speed of sound investigation uses an Arduino Uno microcontroller…

The paper reports qualitative findings from a study about how science teachers enacted discursive purposes and talk moves to support the students' experiments. Science teachers may have difficulties assisting students in designing and conducting valid and reliable experiments as the core epistemic practice of science teaching and learning. It is…

In order to fix some important concepts of Fundamental Physics, either because they are not usually discussed in depth in theoretical classes and much less at laboratories, or because they are not sufficiently developed in textbooks, it is more effective not to tackle them directly, but to propose a mental or practical experiment to attract the…

Electrification by rubbing different materials is a well-known phenomenon with a history that began more than five centuries B.C. ago. However, simple experiments can lead to contradictory or inconsistent results, and the history of this phenomena is plagued with non-intuitive results. For example, triboelectric charging by rubbing identical…

Many electroanalytical techniques utilize three-electrode systems consisting of reference, counter, and working electrodes. These electrodes are often expensive when purchased commercially, making low-cost alternatives a vital area of research. Cheaper alternatives have been proposed; however, they often require time-consuming assembly techniques…

We present a novel method for demonstrating the physical principles of ultrasound imaging at a level suitable for educational programmes up to the university level, using a simple mechanical model that is very inexpensive and accessible to a broad variety of educational institutions. The method revolves around the use of one or two steel springs…

The laser pointer has been widely used to demonstrate some simple optics phenomena, like reflection, refraction, total reflection, and diffraction. However, the rays of laser light cannot be seen in the air because the scattered light is too weak. Many physics teachers use milk or smoke to visualize rays of laser light in physics labs, but it is…

In this paper, we have demonstrated the feasibility of using digital technologies to study the behavior of rubber balloons. The experiment to study the behavior of balloons was presented in a new way using the Vernier measuring system, Logger Pro 3 software, Tracker and Google Sheets. This allowed to significantly optimize the work, reduce…

This paper proposes a simple method to design experiments for drawing the light paths at a lens to find its effective focal length and principal planes. In the designed experiments, long-exposure photography was used to record the light scattered using a moving sheet of paper, thus revealing the light path. According to the proposed experimental…

Water rockets can be used in a variety of ways, from schools to planetariums, with very young kids or adults. We propose here simple forms to work with water rockets, going one step further than a simple launch. A smartphone can be used to film the launch and analyze its motion with video analysis or it can even be attached to the rocket, using…

In this laboratory exercise, students have an opportunity to evaluate the potential endocrine disrupting abilities of environmental chemicals of their choice using human cell culture. Over the course of 9 weeks, students learn how to aseptically handle and manipulate cells, perform and analyze a cytotoxicity assay and an enzyme-linked…

Physics preparation for primary school teachers has received attention only in recent decades. Research on science education provides useful guidelines, often disregarded. Several interrelated research questions must be addressed by field research, namely, (a) which physics subjects to teach in primary school and its relationships with other…

Conducting experiments fosters conceptual understanding in science education. In various studies, combinations of real (hands-on) and virtual (computer-simulated) experiments have been shown to be especially helpful for gaining conceptual understanding. The present systematic review, based on 42 experimental studies, focuses on the following: (1)…

Lab activities in primary and secondary education are essential to promote students' scientific skills. In this article, we propose a lab activity where different antimicrobial agents are used to the microorganisms' susceptibility to them. Moreover, we produce a rubric, a scoring tool, to quantify students' replies and evaluate the whole activity.…

In this work, a simple rocking pendulum, in a circular arc shape, is presented. The idea is to put a rigid arc on a clean flat surface of glass and leave it to oscillate under the effect of a little impulse. Then, the periodic time of this arc pendulum's motion is experimentally determined. The mathematical analysis of the arc's motion is derived…