The September 2015 paper "Bouncing Back from 'Deflategate'" is a very interesting article from a physics viewpoint. However, we doubt that the National Football League (NFL) officials will bounce footballs and measure the coefficient of restitution to verify that the footballs remain properly inflated. The release of a few pounds per…

KinSim is a research-grade, interactive, user-friendly, open-source, and visual software for kinetics modeling of environmental chemistry and other applications. Students without any computer-programming background and limited knowledge of environmental chemistry can use KinSim, which also includes multiple features and functionality dedicated to…

A spinning top or a spinning hard-boiled egg is fascinating to observe since both objects can remain upright for a relatively long time without falling over. If spun at sufficient speed on a horizontal surface, the spin axis rises to a vertical position and the bottom end tends to remain fixed in position on the surface. If the initial spin is…

A growing number of Introductory Physics for Life Sciences courses have been developed to prepare biology, premedicine, and prehealth majors for cross-disciplinary connections between physical principles and biological systems. Many students find it challenging to apply idealized algebra-based general physics to more complex biological systems. A…

Research in the field of physics teaching has revealed high school students' difficulties in establishing relations between kinematic equations and real movements. Moreover, there are well-known and significant challenges in their comprehension of graphic language content. Thus, this article explores a didactic activity which utilized robotics in…

Simulations have changed chemistry education by allowing students to visualize the motion and interaction of particles underlying important chemical processes. With kinetics, such visualizations can illustrate how particles interact to yield successful reactions and how changes in concentration and temperature impact the number and success of…

A kinesthetic classroom activity was designed to help students understand enzyme activity and catalysis of reaction rate. Students served the role of enzymes by manipulating Pop-It Beads as the catalytic event. This activity illuminates the relationship between reaction rate and reaction progress by allowing students to experience first-hand the…

The purpose of this study was to analyze organic chemistry students' annotations of reaction coordinate diagrams to better understand how they sought connections between reactions and reaction coordinate diagrams. Thirty-six students enrolled in Organic Chemistry II participated in semistructured, think-aloud interviews that asked students to…

The mathematical models that describe enzyme kinetics are invaluable predictive tools in numerous scientific fields. However, the daunting mathematical language used to describe kinetic behavior can be confusing for life science students; they often struggle to conceptualize and relate the mathematical representations to the molecular phenomena…

Many teachers are confused about how to implement the phenomena-based teaching recommended by the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States 2013). This article describes one possible approach--purposely repurposing existing activities. This process involves having teachers: (1) Choose a phenomenon that informs the development…

In selecting from a repertoire of traditional kinetics experiments, an instructor often has to choose among having students gain experience with the graphical method, the method of initial rates, or a temperature-dependent experiment in which students construct an Arrhenius plot. This paper presents an environmentally friendly bleaching reaction…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to ascertain the effect of Problem Based Learning (PBL) on student oral communication competency gains. Methods: Eighty students from two consecutive undergraduate Kinesiology courses (Spring semesters, 2014-15) formed into 29 small groups and were studied. Oral communication competency was assessed using a…

The disadvantages of the usual linear least-squares analysis of first- and second-order kinetic data are described, and nonlinear least-squares fitting is recommended as an alternative.

A way to promote student interest and engagement in physics is by capitalizing on students' skills in arts and crafts to design and make physics-based toys. This article illustrates how two students (averaging 14 years of age) in the authors' science class designed and fabricated a variation of a physics-based teaching aid that demonstrates the…

In this thematic issue, we examined Doctoral Students' (DS) perspectives on six topics: (a) dissertation, (b) teacher training, (c) research training, (d) advisors, (e) doctoral program and department, and (f) career perspectives (past DS). Each topic was viewed through three lenses: (a) status (past and current DS), (b) gender, and (c)…