Active Learning Activities

100 Years of Work

This is a jigsaw activity where students map key developments in workplace design over 100 years.

Running on Water: Activating Prior Knowledge of Static Equilibrium

Students watch, discuss, then analyze the veracity of a video in which hydrophobic shoes allow people to run on water.

Nature of Science Ice-Breaker

A first class ice-breaker activity introducing the nature of science.

Card Sorting Activities for Mechanics

Real-World Physics: Mini Video Projects

These mini-video projects require students to engage with course concepts and make connections to the world in which we live.

Controversy in the Science Classroom: Nature of Science Quiz

Physics Worksheet Based Activity

The aim of the activity is the application of concepts and math to solve complex problems.

Group Problem Solving with Show and Tell

Students learn to build a conceptual model describing a Mechanics-based situation and practice mathematical problem-solving.

Live Demonstrations of Beats and Interference of Sound

In this activity, students learn to apply the principal of superposition to two new sound contexts.

Model Building

Students learn to build a conceptual model describing a situation involving an accelerating charged particle.

Circuits: Card Sorting With Multiple Representations (E&M)

Students develop their ability to reason about physics concepts in terms of multiple representations, beyond just equations.

Electrostatics: Card Sorting With Mutiple Representations (E&M)

Students associate configurations of charges with their characteristics from word, diagram & graph representations.

Solving World Issues: One Smartphone at a Time

The purpose of this activity is to familiarize students with the potential of online tools for problem-solving.

Forget the Math! Draw Pictures to Learn the Wave Theory of Light

Concept Map: Furniture Design Time Ripple

The Ideal Classroom

National Building Code Jeopardy

Systems Ball Toss

Dark Lords IF-AT

Kinematics Concept Mapping

Bottle Rocket Tracker

Using video and Tracker software, students learn to analyze and fit equations of motion to raw data.

Falling Object Tracker

Through this activity students analyze 1D kinematic problems & see examples of both constant velocity and acceleration.

Dart Gun Velocity

In this activity, students will find the muzzle velocity of a foam dart gun and predict its maximum range.

Circus Launch Clicker Questions