Structure for an investigation taking 2~3 lessons. Suitable for KS3, 4 or 5 depending on how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go, colour-coded slides steer you to KS3/4 or KS5. Method: drop a cupcake case. Measure the speed of fall. Now put another cupcake case inside the first. has the speed of fall changed? How much? What about 3, 4, 5, …10 cupcake cases? Is there a relationship between number of cases and speed of fall? Is it proportional? Simple on the surface, but gets students into independent/dependent/control variables, measurement, uncertainties, anomalies…the lot. Shamelessly based on an idea from the Physics teaching Podcast at https://twitter.com/physicstp

This powerpoint and worksheet walks students through the procedure for drawing ray diagrams for gcse. It refers to the AQA OUP textbook, but the activity itself is self-contained.

The wave equation “velocity = frequency x wavelength” tends to terrify students. This activity takes most of a lesson, and walks them through it so they can interpret exam questions and know what they’re looking at.

To do this properly, students would need a whole lesson. The worksheet walks them through the procedure and how to write it up.

A whole lesson to teach problem-solving, practical technique & data processing to new A-level students. You have a metre ruler. You have a 100g mass. Nothing else. Your mission is to determine the mass of the metre ruler. (Hint - principle of moments) The powerpoint walks the class through how to do it, how to get reliable results rather than just make one measurement and then claim that you’ve done it, how to use graphical techniques to get those reliable results, and how to calculate the uncertainties. Adapted from an idea I heard on https://twitter.com/physicstp You should subscribe and listen too!

A whole lesson practical. Use an electromagnet to repel a permanent magnet that’s placed on a balance. The powerpoint and worksheet walk the students through the procedure and how to process the results.

A quick lesson plenary with a couple of on-screen questions about springs, in an “underline the correct answer” format. The first slide is the questions only, you could give that to students either on paper or electronically, the second slide animates the answers once they’ve had a go.

We’ve all been there. The class has done an experiment, and now they deny all knowledge of how to plot a line graph of their results. Try this.

This was inspired by Gethyn Jones at emc2andallthat.wordpress.com https://emc2andallthat.wordpress.com/2019/10/27/fifa-for-the-gcse-physics-calculation-win/ I turned his idea into a powerpoint & worksheet.

A powerpoint to introduce the idea of pressure = force/area, and then scaffold that old favourite “shoe pressure on the floor” practical.

A-level physics. The powerpoint scaffolds the lesson. You’ll need to do the demo with the various light sources, electroscope and 5kV power supply. It’ll be fine… The other powerpoint file is a printable worksheet that saves a lot of writing.

in pairs, one student drops a metre ruler and the other catches it. They use the look-up table to work out their reaction time. Then they calculate an average and a range.

Our equipment has a long tube in which we can adjust the water level, with a speaker at the top, driven by a signal generator. Hopefully you can set up something similar. The worksheet walks students through the procedure and the data processing. To keep it simple, I’ve ignored end corrections.

This would take most of a lesson, or a whole lesson if you have a follow-up discussion and compare results. An A3 sheet with a picture of a house and activity instructions, page 2 is a selection of appliances for students to choose from and put in their house.

To do this properly, students would need a whole lesson. The worksheet walks them through the procedure, gives instructions about plotting the graph and scaffolds the conclusion.

Each group gets a metre ruler and a 100g mass. Nothing else. Challenge - how are you going to measure the mass of the ruler? This resource is structured to begin with GCSE ideas, then move on to A-level handling of graphs, gradients and uncertainties.

A card sorting exercise. Cut up page 2, then put quarks into the boxes on page 1 to make baryons and mesons

A level physics students will probably have a confused notion of where electrons are - something about orbiting…but only in shells…some of the shells can take 2 electrons, others 8… This is a quick explanation of what the terminology means. A level chemistry students often have this as part of their course, so it’s handy for them to refer to as well.

Pretty much a whole lesson. A quick qualitative intro to the National Grid (no calculations). Then a walk through fuses, RCDs, earthing etc to give an overview of electrical safety.

What happens in a nucleus when an alpha particle is emitted? What about beta or gamma? This presentation and worksheet walks students through the processes and equips them to answer gcse questions. I’d been teaching this for ages, and eventually wrote this sheet so I could make a proper job of it and not lose students along the way.