If a small object is placed under the front leg of a chair, the chair tilts backwards. If the object is placed under a rear leg, the chair tilts sideways. The effect is surprising but can be analysed in terms of elementary physics.

A vehicle starts from rest at constant acceleration, then cruises at constant speed for a time. Next, it decelerates at a constant rate.… This and similar statements are common in elementary physics courses. Students are asked to graph the motion of the vehicle or find the velocity, acceleration, and distance traveled by the vehicle from a given…

This article presents the experiences of Miss Felecia McLaughlin, a fourth-grade teacher from the island of Jamaica who used the model proposed by Bass et al. (2009) to assess conceptual understanding of four of the six types of simple machines while encouraging collaboration through the creation of learning teams. Students had an opportunity to…

Ah, springtime, and young people's thoughts turn to... baseball, of course. But this column is not about "how" to throw a curveball, so you'll have to look that up on your own. Here, the focus is on the "why" of the curveball. There are two different things that cause a spinning ball to curve. One is known as the "Bernoulli effect" and the other…

Bernoulli's principle is being misunderstood and consequently misused. This paper clarifies the issues involved, hypothesises as to how this unfortunate situation has arisen, provides sound explanations for many everyday phenomena involving moving air, and makes associated recommendations for teaching the effects of moving fluids.

Play involves unstructured activity that is freely entered into and intrinsically rewarding. When children engage in play there is little intentional learning. There are no lesson plans. There are no daily objectives or specific learning outcomes. Incidental learning can cause relatively permanent changes in the way one thinks; accidental learning…