Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Cool Demo for Newton's First Law?



At 06:23 PM 6/23/2004, Dan, you wrote:
Hello,

I'm a new (prospective) teacher, and I have my second interview with
a local high school tomorrow. I need to deliver a 15 minute lesson
on Newton's 1st law. I'm looking for some good ideas for a "wow"
demo that will deliver the message effectively and be easy to pull off.
Right now, I'm thinking about wearing roller blades and ask one of
the students to push me -- and then go into a discussion about
constant velocity.

Any other ideas will be appreciated!

Thanks,
Dan

Disclaimer: I am not a teacher.

I recall that when I was a young man, the company I then worked for,
discouraged me and others like me, from wearing blazers: it was too
easy for customers to draw comparisons between us and high school
and college students.

If you are young, I suggest it might be unwise not to provide some
psychic distance between you and your putative high school students.

Taking in the words of wisdom I have been reading on the list about
making every effort to engage the student body in delivering their own
enlightenment, the idea about enlisting a student's co operation in
demonstrating N1 seems good. But that's ONE student.
How could one invoke the participation of every student, I wonder?

Importing an ice chest with dry-ice pucks seems to have student
appeal too.

A final alert: it seems that the people who invoke student participation
lose something in the "glamor-demo" dimension. So what is better,
can be perceived as worse.
A participative approach would warrant a verbal aside to reviewers
on this very topic, so as to plant the idea that one may not initially
understand that the superior participative approach may not dazzle
bystanders....

...alternatively, how are you at "swallowing" liquid nitrogen?
No relevant, but very, very showy!

Brian Whatcott Altus OK Eureka!