Lab Ideas
The links have been updated (Jan 1 2013) to a Google Drive folder. Most but maybe not all labs are available. To view the docs properly you will need to download the file.
When do you learn best? Reading a manual for your VCR or grabbing the remote and just playing around?
My idea of labs is not to give the students a list of things to do, a list of data to collect and then prescribe a method to analyze the data. Following directions is not understanding physics! Rather I tend to give open ended labs, or explorations…
Planning Labs: These are the kind of things I submitted to the IB.
- "General Prop Labs" - give them a prop and see what they can come up with. For example, a chunk of clay, a balloon, small magnets, iron rods, rubber bands, electric motors… I liked to give the kids options too, give them a range of props.
- Bottle Draining Lab - Get a plastic bottle, drill a hole, look at the rate of draining or the total time to drain vs hole size.
- Measuring Magnetic Force - simply investigate the force vs. range for two magnets. Exploring how the magnetic field relates to forces between magnets.
Exploration: Great way to get kids to learn on their own…
- Exploring Vectors - My first couple of days for year 1. Gets them thinking…
- Uncertanity Lab (Excel - Word) - The excel spreadsheet generates random data for a cylinder rolling down a ramp. The students can copy the data and "paste special" into their own excel sheet. Each student then has their own data and own results! The word document has step by step directions to help the students.
- Circuit Basics - Just an exploration of ciruits, hands on learning. Worked great.
- Magnetism Exploration - Same idea, kids learn better with their hands than with their ears.
- Optics Exploration - Take a guess.
Review Labs: I used these with my SL students as reviews.
- Proving Newtons's 2nd Law - Not the F=ma but the other one… Let them come up with a method.
- Measuring the temperature of a flame - Using heat capacities to get a ball park figure for the temperature.
- Crocodile Physics: A great program, computer simulations simplify the physics for the students (I learned this was a VERY good thing) and a great way to get some lab hours (we were a laptop school).
Need Help on A Lab?
I'm happy to help with labs, but some info is good to have.
- Is the lab a "design lab?"
- Did your teacher give you particular materials?
- Did your teacher give you a set of instructions to follow? Or is it very open ended?
- What are your independent and dependent variables?
- Essentially and most importantly: What's the goal of the lab?
Knowing (some of) these bits of info helps me help you.
Hello, i am an IB student. I am writing my EE on physics and i was wandering what kind of topics i could use, i am interested in Waves, Lasers, Particle physics and the possible 'Quantum Gravity' theorem. Any help would be appreciated
Physics EE's can be tough and I will admit it has been a while since I helped with one.
I think the best EE's will have a significant experimental component. Not to mention writing about your own experiment is way more interesting and easier too. So a first question might be what kind of experimental equipment do you have? Do you have a teacher or professional to help out?
A purely research based EE can be enough, but its likely to be hard to get full marks on it. At some level it becomes hard to distinguish this kind of EE from a wikipedia article. Do you have access to work physicists? Interviews and or maybe a short internship could be a cool start to a Physics EE.
HS
Hello, I'm doing IB year1 and I was asked to submit a design lab for the topic "mechanics". I'm really lost and I was wondering if you could help me out a bit.
Were you given any more details? Any restrictions other than mechanics?
Is your teacher only asking for you to plan the lab or do you actually have to carry it out?
I always loved dropping a heavy steel ball onto Plasticine (modeling clay) from different heights and then looking at the size of deformation (dent) in the clay. Or make a ball out of the Plasticine and drop it from different heights and measure the size of the dent. These labs are simple and generally produce great data.
-HS
Thanks :)
There were no restrictions other than the fact that you must produce quantitative results and not qualitative results. Also, we wouldn't have to actually carry out the lab, just formulate an idea.
Hello, I have to also do a physics design lab on mechanics.
Thank you very much for the suggestion, I have a question.
What exactly (which theory) can I test with the experiment that you suggested?
It's not a theory so much, but its very much related to energy conservation. The size (width and or depth) of the dent is related to the height and thus the potential energy of the ball when it was released. This works for both the steel ball onto the Plasticine and the simply dropping a ball of Plasticine.
thank you!
Hey, I am in the Ib Year I, we have been given a lab experiment on thermodynamics and I am really lost, Can you help?
Thanking you in anticipation.
-Sarah S.
I can give it a shot. What's the lab? Where are you stuck?
-HS
Hey there, I have the same project as all of the previous people, I have to do a lab on mechanics. I'm interested the bottle draining lab you mentioned above and I was wondering if there was any way I could get the info you originally tried to post. The link is now broken and I am wondering whether there is another way I can get the info or if you could just briefly explain it.
thanks
-Harrison Barber
I'll fix the links, but here is were the "Fixed Link" will go to:
https://drive.google.com/?tab=yo&authuser=0#folders/0B6kHoCsxkSYxOXNxMm9SZzVScC1XNDVVUTg0QWJDUQ
Its a google drive folder. All the labs are Word Docs. You will need to download the file to properly see it. To do so click the file (let it open) then look for the downward pointing arrow or go to the "file" menu and then select download.
-HS
thanks a bunch
Hi, I'm in Physics IB SL and I was asked to design a lab relating to "Power" in some way. He said to keep it simple. Could you please help me out please? I'm really lost. Thank you so much!
I'm a big fan of open-ended labs… a "Power" lab is is very open.
I would take a look at the equations for power:
Power = Energy / Time
Power = Force * Velocity
From the first one I might think about measuring the power output of a candle or stove burner. The rate of change in temperature of water in a pot is due to the power of the heating source. A huge potential source of error is when the water and pot get substantially warmer than the surrounding air as heat is lost to the air. But if you generated a temperature vs. time graph the slope for low temperatures would give you a measure of power - just don't forget the heat capacity of the pot. The change in the slope would give you some measure of how much energy and power are lost to the surrounding air.
From the second one I often think about air resistance and the power needed to maintain a constant speed - could be some cool stuff with a car and force probes. I have lots of complicated ideas for this, but none that are easy to explain or do. As avid cyclist power is huge for training, every Pro cyclist has a power meter (reads in Watts). The power output of cyclist determines (largely) how fast they can go.
Sorry I'm coming up a bit dry on this one.
I'm really thrilled to know about this kind of website. I'll never get stuck forevermore in dealing IB Physics. Thank you
Post preview:
Close preview