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  • Talking About Gravity

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about gravity. The probe is designed to determine whether students recognize that gravity is a universal force that exists everywhere on Earth and in…

  • Accessible Physics for All

    Journal Article |

  • Rolling Marbles

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about circular motion. The probe is designed to determine whether students recognize that an object will move in a straight line unless acted upon by an…

  • Spaceships

    Lesson Plan |

    This probe is designed to elicit students’ ideas about changing the direction of motion in the absence of air. Many students will have seen movies or television shows in which spaceships turn by banking or using wing…

  • Big Books Have a Big Impact on Elementary Science Education

    Journal Article |

    Preservice elementary teachers are faced with the daunting task of learning enough about every subject to support their students’ development of foundational ideas. Teacher preparation programs and professional…

  • Equal and Opposite

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about pairs of forces that fit Newton’s third law. The probe is specifically designed to reveal whether students can identify third law force pairs as…

  • Quickly Teaching Speed, Velocity, and Acceleration—Part 2

    Journal Article |

    In the February 2019 issue we looked at teaching speed and velocity. Now we’re ready to tackle acceleration.

  • Force and Motion Ideas

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to comprehensively elicit students’ ideas about the relationship between force and motion. The list of possible answers includes several distracters that are based on learning…

  • Modifying Traditional Labs to Target Scientific Reasoning

    Journal Article |

    This article showcases how a physics lab course was successfully redesigned to promote important reasoning abilities not explicitly addressed in the typical college setting. Student development of such abilities is…

  • Is It a Theory?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the nature of science. The probe is designed to find out if students distinguish scientific theories from the common use of the word theory and if…

  • Freebies and Opportunities for Science and STEM Teachers, October 24, 2023

    Reports Article |

  • Grandpa’s Flying Hammer

    Case Study |

  • Freebies for Science Teachers, May 11, 2021

    Reports Article |

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