Science Teaching tips from Lee Trampleasure – Page 10 – Bringing over 30 years of public and private high school teaching experience to help you.

April 9, 2009

10 Excellent web sites for teaching?

Scott McCleod posts: A seemingly simple question This seems like a seemingly simple question for teachers: Could you identify 10 excellent web sites for your grade level / subject area? Ideally, of course, teachers would know 10 or so excellent sites for each unit, not just for the overall course that they’re teaching. After all, the Internet has been around for...

Science Education Comments: 0

January 29, 2009

New NorCal/Nevada American Association of Physics Teachers web site

One of my new tasks for 2009 is Web Weaver for the Northern California/Nevade American Association of Physics Teachers. Today we launched a re-designed web site, powered by WordPress, my favorite Content Management System (CMS). Visit ncnaapt.org. If you don’t see a menu on the right side, the new server location probably hasn’t made it to your corner of the...

Science Education Comments: 0

January 15, 2009

Force data from elevator ride to top of 555 California St, SF (52 floors)

Yesterday I took a trip up the longest elevator ride in San Francisco (at 555 California St). I brought along my LabQuest and Force Plate (essentially a recording bathroom scale, see image of LabQuest at bottom of post). As I rode the elevator up and down, the LabQuest was recording my apparent weight (think about how you feel when an...

Modeling/Physics/Science Education Comments: 0

January 12, 2009

Wind Powered Art Vehicle/Kinetic Sculpture

Here’s a video of a great kinetic sculpture that walks along a beach powered by the wind.

General/Science Education Comment: 1

December 1, 2008

Great physics cartoon

Egg drop contest One of the classic physics projects is an egg drop contest. Students develop an apparatus to hold an egg that will be dropped from the second or third floor (depending on how high the teacher can get easily). This cartoon is a great twist on that, and maybe a reason to use only unfertilized eggs…

Physics/Science Education Comments: 0

November 10, 2008

Tips for using the TI 83/84 calculator in a science class

I’ve posted my student handout “Analyzing data using your TI-83 or TI-84 calculator” to the web. You can find it and more TI tools at trampleasure.net/science/TI-calculators/ [October 23, 2009: I have an updated version you can find here.] I presented this handout at the Northern California/Nevada American Association of Phyiscs Teachers November 8 meeting at Foothill College.

Modeling/Physics/Science Education Comments: 0

July 25, 2008

Carbon sequestering in the seabed, nice video too

Science Friday, my favorite radio show when I’m not teaching on Fridays, had a great piece today on carbon sequestering on the ocean floor. What if you could take CO2, pump it down a deep hole in the sea floor and turn it into something harmless? New research suggests the idea is not so far-fetched. David Goldberg, Taro Takahashi and...

Science Education Comments: 0

July 4, 2008

Great resources for checking web pages for disabled accessibility

I am no expert on checking accessibility of web sites, but I use a couple tools that can help quickly check web pages: 1. Install the Fangs extension in Firefox (available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/fangs). Then, from the Tools menu, select Fangs. You will get a page as “seen” by someone who uses a screen reader. Screen readers can be set to...

General Comments: 0

May 20, 2008

Stretching program for you computer users

I used Stretch Break when I was working at Lawrence Hall of Science, spending much time daily at the computer. It has a nice combination of stretches, both sitting and standing. You can set it to remind you at any time interval you chose (default is every 30 minutes). It’s a great program for those of us who get caught...

General Comments: 0

May 19, 2008

pi tie

I made a pi tie at Zazzle.com. They are like CafePress.com: you can add text and images to many different types of products. Mr. Schroeder and I will be sporting them next March 14 (that’s pi day, 3/14). You can order them online, and I got mine in only two days. Helps to work 30 miles from where they are...

General/Science Education Comments: 0