Physics Activities

Here are Physics based activities using basic materials and equipment. Click on any lesson, and it will take you to a page with more details and links that will help you learn about the lesson and how to do the activity.
The standard each lesson is connected to in the WASSCE 2016 syllabi used in Sierra Leone are provided here.

Remember,

• NEVER hesitate to take one of the lesson plans and make changes that suit your own needs or situation. 
• NEVER doubt yourself if you want to try and develop you own experiment or project, or go after and try to solve some local problem that may be science-based! 

- Acceleration of gravity, g, using a Pendulum (and Mass of the Earth!)

- Air friction and terminal velocity
- Algorithms: Thinking like a robot (essence of computer programming)

- Calculus-based physics videos for Mechanics and Electricity & Magnetism (need Internet access)
- Charging objects using induction and conduction

- Density determination for materials
- Distance vs Displacement vector (and could include Speed vs Velocity vector)
- Friction strength using inclines
- Friction strength using force scales

- Hang time: Determine your own hang time when jumping

- Human horsepower: Determine by running up stairs or a hill
- Hydraulic jump: How to develop research questions for everyday events
- Inertia examples (Newton's 1st law of motion)
- Measuring mass and weight: Making and calibrating your own rubber band force scale
- Meteor shower observations and discussions (orbits, air friction)
- Ohm's law: if there is access to electricity (can use batteries)

- Ohm's law: if there is NOT access to electricity or equipment
- Paper airplanes (could have engineering design challenge, or a contest)
- Pendulum properties
- Projectiles: Rubber band launcher
- Projectiles: Predict landing spots of any type of ball rolling off a table
- Radioactive half-life (using sets of anything with two sides, such as coins or two-sided chips)
- Rotational motion examples

- Scales: Making scales for measuring mass using rubber bands 
- Scaling the size of the solar system
- Simple harmonic motion using rubber bands and string
- Sound and waves: Rubber band instruments
- Surface tension of different liquids

More generally:
     Encourage students to write poems, stories, songs, short plays, or debates about any physics topic or issue that is physics related! It is a wonderful way to build up writing and creative skills, in addition to new ways of learning the topic. Often, students better remember and learn a topic than through traditional methods, such as when a catchy song is better remembered than paragraphs from a textbook.  Also, there are over one hundred 'how to' physics videos for students and teachers to use for solving a variety of physics problems in mechanics and electricity & magnetism.