TPT WebSights column draft
for March 2005: Introductory Circuits.
WebSights offers a
selection of sites appropriate for teaching a standard topic year-long
introductory physics survey course.
Next month will feature sites for teaching introductory optics. All sites are copyright by the
authors. This column is also
available as a web page at <http://PhysicsEd.BuffaloState.Edu/pubs/WebSights/>.
If you have successfully
used a site to teach physics that you feel is outstanding and appropriate for
WebSights, please email me the site and how you use it for possible inclusion
in WebSights. The best site
monthly will receive a T-shirt. <macisadl@buffalostate.edu>
The Mechanical Universe: 52 half-hour university physics lessons streamed as
video-on-demand free of charge.
Programs 32 and 33 address the invention of the electric battery by
Volta and Series and Parallel circuits with Ohm's and Kirchoff's Laws. Program 38 addresses Alternating
Current. A great review reference for teachers before teaching a topic, or as
enrichment or a makeup assignment for high ability students. <http://www.learner.org/progdesc/series42.html>.
Biographies: At
<http://www.ee.umd.edu/~taylor/welcome.html>,
Professor Taylor hosts several collections of biographies including Electric
Personalities. Scientists' biographies are also found at the MacTutor History
of Mathematics archive at the University of
St. Andrews:
<http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/BiogIndex.html>.
Tutorials, Simulations,
Visualizations and Applets: DC Circuits
Tutorials at <http://www.physics.uoguelph.ca/tutorials/ohm/>
by Bill Teesdale. Also Basic
E&M from the IPPEX site at <http://ippex.pppl.gov/interactive/electricity/>. Visualizations at <http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/electromag/java/>
include the Drude-like "molecular-level" Model of Resistance, an
Ohm's Law simulator and Field Effect Transistor (FET) function. A very simple
circuit simulator with activities I use with pre-service elementary teachers is
found at <http://jersey.uoregon.edu/Voltage/>.
A more sophisticated shockwave circuit simulator used by some HS teachers is
<http://www.article19.com/shockwave/oz.htm>. Suggested: K. Eastwood, B. Gang.
RLC Circuits simulation applets at <http://www.phy.ntnu.edu.tw/ntnujava/>
and <http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeoacw1/impedance.html>. Semiconductors are discussed in tutorials in the history-themed
Transistorized! <http://www.pbs.org/transistor/>,
also JAVA tutorials on LEDs and Solar Cells at the Olympus site <http://www.mic-d.com/java/solarcell/>.
A reviewed list of related E&M applets: <http://www.merlot.org/search/ArtifactList.po?catcode=168>.
Over 1800 mathematics
and science-themed songs at <http://www.science-groove.org/MASSIVE/>
are catalogued to date in the M.A.S.S.I.V.E. database.
The database run by Greg Crowther, lists available titles, recordings,
lyrics, performers and so forth.
There is an accompanying 24-hour science songs Internet streamed radio
station. This is a very unique,
enjoyable site. Suggested: J.
Ebert.
A keyword searchable
collection of over 18,000 science quotations (including physics quotations) by Carl Gaither at
<http://www.angelfire.com/tx/StatBook>.
Suggested: C. Gaither.
Errata: The Jan
2005 WebSights mistakenly referred to a website run by "Dan
Kettering." My apologies to
Professor Dan Russell of Kettering University. His excellent site of animations
for teaching waves, acoustics, and vibration is at: <http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/demos.html>.
Dan M <danmac@att.net>