Expat reminded me of a teacher I had an high school. He taught physics and chemistry, but he made things entertaining and engaging. In physics, our labs involved some degree of fun, like when we were studying potential and kinetic energy, and how efficiently something converts from potential to kinetic energy. Sounds pretty dry, except when it involved Matchbox cars. We would set up the familiar plastic Matchbox tracks, put a couple of photogates at the end so we could determine the speed of the cars, weigh the cars, measure the height we were starting them at, and determine the kinetic energy of the car at the end of the track. Turns out they are pretty efficient when they don't have bent axles.
Another lab involved frictionless motion, but we didn't mess around with those boring air track carts. He actually built a hovercraft capable of carrying a person. Just a plywood circle with some heavy plastic attached to it forming a bag underneath it, with some holes poked in the plastic. You sat indian-style, holding a small Shop Vac in your lap, and used the exhaust of the Shop Vac running into a hole in the plywood. It actually worked! We would use a spring scale to pull the hovercraft with somebody on board, figure out how much speed it picked up with somebody using a stopwatch and counting tile squares, but we would float down the hallway as the other students played out the extension cord to keep it from pulling back.
I remember the day we were doing it, the district superintendent was visiting our school that day, saw this going on, and was so intrigued he asked if he could take a ride.
It's too bad we don't have more teachers like him, because I think he not only made it fun, but really helped convey the more practical ideas behind why we're learning physics.
Another lab involved frictionless motion, but we didn't mess around with those boring air track carts. He actually built a hovercraft capable of carrying a person. Just a plywood circle with some heavy plastic attached to it forming a bag underneath it, with some holes poked in the plastic. You sat indian-style, holding a small Shop Vac in your lap, and used the exhaust of the Shop Vac running into a hole in the plywood. It actually worked! We would use a spring scale to pull the hovercraft with somebody on board, figure out how much speed it picked up with somebody using a stopwatch and counting tile squares, but we would float down the hallway as the other students played out the extension cord to keep it from pulling back.
I remember the day we were doing it, the district superintendent was visiting our school that day, saw this going on, and was so intrigued he asked if he could take a ride.
It's too bad we don't have more teachers like him, because I think he not only made it fun, but really helped convey the more practical ideas behind why we're learning physics.
