APS March Meeting 2014
Volume 59, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 3–7, 2014;
Denver, Colorado
Session G14: Invited Session: Toys and Mechanisms
11:15 AM–2:15 PM,
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Room: 301-303
Sponsoring
Unit:
GSNP
Chair: James Hanna, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Abstract ID: BAPS.2014.MAR.G14.2
Abstract: G14.00002 : Physics of Toys: The Joy of Asking Questions
11:51 AM–12:27 PM
Preview Abstract
Abstract
Author:
Beverley Taylor
(Miami University)
Children are natural scientists. They ask questions, they observe, they try
things to see what happens. Often school-based science does little to
nurture the young scientist and, in fact, may do just the opposite with
thick textbooks, fact heavy lessons, and too many equations. The exploration
of common toys produces deep learning by emphasizing concepts and
connections before formal definitions and mathematics. It also connects the
classroom to the familiar world outside of school and gets students writing
and talking about physics ideas. At the university level, investigating what
toys do and how they do it can be a challenging application of undergraduate
physics from the introductory course up through senior mechanics. Toys
provide an ideal system for the kind of open-ended inquiry that introduces
students to what scientists really do. They can pose their own questions,
explore the behavior of the system sufficiently to create a hypothesis, use
their theoretical knowledge to make a simplified model of the system and
predict an outcome, design an experiment, discover that the real world is
messy, think about what they haven't taken into account with their simple
model and try to improve it. I have spent close to 30 years thinking about
how to use toys to enhance physics education from 4th grade through college.
In the process I have collected hundreds of toys the majority of which
relate to mechanics, but also to sound, light, electricity and magnetism. I
will discuss the pedagogical reasons for using toys in physics education and
the many different ways to use them from demonstrations to laboratory
experiments to discussion starters as well as how it is possible to use the
same toy with many different age levels by approaching the analysis
differently. I will share a number of my favorite toys, but focus
particularly on those related to energy concepts.
To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2014.MAR.G14.2