Science Teaching tips from Lee Trampleasure – Bringing over 30 years of public and private high school teaching experience to help you.

May 14, 2025

Calorimetry: Measuring energy in foods.

Many chemistry teachers lead a lab in which students burn food and capture much of the energy in water in an aluminum can. Since so much of the energy is not absorbed by the water in the can (so much just passes around the can and rises into the classroom), this lab is more about practicing lab skills, including: I’m...

Chemistry Comments: 0

October 16, 2023

The importance of the non-breaking space in science writing

As a science teacher, I write a lot of documents that have numbers with units (e.g. 3.6 m/s). When readers see a number at the end of a line without units immediately following them, it is harder for them to keep the numbers and units. The 50 second video below shows the difference between regular spaces (what you get when you click...

Science Education/Tech tips Comments: 0

September 27, 2023

Average vs trends: “Who should pack your parachute?”

This question focuses on the traditional grading system were all scores count the same, and a students’ final grade is based on the average of all the scores. The alternative presented is to look at trends in a student’s scores…looking for growth and allowing for early mistakes/low scores to not have as great an impact.

Grading/Science Education Comments: 0

February 4, 2023

Ionic bonding pies

Here’s a great ionic bonding activity shared on the National Chemistry Teachers Facebook page. Students are exposed to valance electrons and matching for 1:1 ionic compounds. Two sizes are provided: One full page pies, and one with six pies on a page. Here is the PDF template.

Bonding/Chemistry Comments: 0

January 20, 2023

Yolo Bypass flooding-January 2023

I’ve collecting photos of the Yolo Bypass during the January 2023 flooding. Photo location is at the east end of the bypass, on the north side along the bike path. I’ll be adding more photos as I take them over the next few weeks. Looking westbound from West Sacramento Click on the forward/back buttons on the side of each image...

Geology/Earth Science Comments: 0

October 13, 2021

Introducing forces using bowling balls & brooms

n Modeling Instruction lessons, most units start with a ‘paradigm lab’ that initiates development of a conceptual model for the unit (‘concepts before math’). When introducing forces, the model presented here develops the relationship between ‘pushes’ and changes in motion. This post explains the procedures and pedagogical rationale for this activity.

General Comments: 0

October 5, 2021

Instantaneous change in direction

A member of a physics teacher ed group asked the following question: First time physics teacher here with a graphing question- What would a velocity vs time graph look like if a car was to change direction without slowing down? I got this question and was not able to answer it. Thanks for your help!

Physics

November 12, 2020

Cardstock paper bridge competition

In my physics classes at Menlo-Atherton High School, we used a homemade bridge breaker to test the strength of student bridges. Students created bridges out of manila folder paper and hot glue. Maximum height are provided, and the distance between the two landing is specified, but in the end the winners are the groups that can create the best load-to-mass...

Physics Comments: 0

September 1, 2020

Videos for buggy lab from home

With COVID-19 requiring many of us to do remote teaching this fall, I wanted to provide videos that students could use at home. I shot these videos with a cell phone gimbal to stabilize the video.

Physics Comments: 3