Raising Physics to the Surface Activities

The Raising Physics to the Surface project is to create a set of hands-on, discovery-style, discussion-based classroom activities where students develop meaningful understandings of physical systems that depend on multiple variables.

During these activities, students work with custom, dry-erasable, 3D surfaces, corresponding contour and gradient maps, and computer-based models.

The activities span physics topics in classical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, and thermal physics.

Overall Raising Physics Project Guide with project background, instructional philosophy and tips, and detailed information about the surface materials. (Each activity below has its own Instructor's Guide, too.)

Remote Instruction: Some of the activities can be run remotely with contour maps. Those activities are tagged with “(Remote)”.

List of Raising Physics Activities

Thermo:

• Changes in Internal Energy(Remote Modification Possible)
• Ideal Gas Model(Remote Modification Possible)
• Thermodynamics States(Remote Modification Possible)
• Covariation in Thermal Systems
• Quantifying Change(Suitable for Remote)
• “Squishability” of Water Vapor(Remote Modification Possible)
• Heat & Temperature of Water Vapor(Suitable for Remote)

E&M:

• Electric Potential of Two Charged Plates
• Electric Field of Two Charged Plates
• Equipotential Surfaces
• Number of Paths
• Vector Integrals
• Work Done by an Electric Field

Mechanics:

• Gravitational Potential Energy
• Gravitational Force

Other Draft Ideas for Activities

• Charged Sphere (in development)

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation DUE Grant No. 1612480

See more information from our sister project Raising Calculus to the Surface with materials for multivariable calculus.

See more information about the research side of this project.