Active Learning Activities

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.

Mechanics in Motion: Iterative GIF Creation

In groups, students create GIFs to demonstrate and explain how mechanic principles apply in real-life scenarios.

Love at First Insight: Crafting Dating Profiles for Therapeutic Techniques

Students create a dating profile that highlights the key feature of the major Abnormality Models in Psychology.

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.

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.

Gender Socialization throughout the Life Course

Students complete a grid that illustrates different life periods that reinforce gender narratives.

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.

Why Health & Safety is Essential to Recreation Leadership

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

Family Feud

Defining a Definition

In this single-class activity, students practice problem-solving related to definitions.

Systems Ball Toss

Bottle Rocket Tracker

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

Dart Gun Velocity

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

Forces Scavenger Hunt

Lenz’s Law

Motion Diagrams

In this activity, students learn to create and interpret motion diagrams using a notebook file in interactive whiteboards.

Area Under the Curve

In this activity, students learn about the relationship between position and the area under a velocity-time curve.

Projectile Tracker

Students use the Tracker software to analyze projectile motion to determine which equations fit the plots produced.

Energy Tracker

Students learn to analyze data using spreadsheet programs and gain a deeper understanding of conservation of energy.

Newton’s Third Law