Mystery Boxes - a resource for teaching science models
Mystery boxes are small discs that contain a small ball bearing. Within the disc, there are different types of walls, As students play with the disks by listening and making any other observations, they can try to infer the shape of the walls. They can make even more observations, by using a small magnet.
Since the box is sealed, they are unable to true 'know; the wall arrangement. The boxes are designed by School Lab at CERN, and are a very useful resource to teach your students
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The boxes can be downloaded and printed from a 3D printer from Thingverse
I painted them differently from each model , but you dont have to
IMPORTANT: Never tell the students the design. Thats not how science works
You can download my lesson plan instructions
I painted them differently from each model , but you dont have to
IMPORTANT: Never tell the students the design. Thats not how science works
You can download my lesson plan instructions
Resources to teach Particle Physics
- CERN - Cern's website has a wealth of resources. As well as updates of the latest work and access to all academic papers, they also have freely available images, videos and animations
- A closer look at the LHC - a Spanish based website, this site is translated in English and has a wealth of information on CERN and the LHC, and the physics application. It is specifically focused at helping educators teach the concepts at a high school level
- The Perimeter Institute , the institute for Theoretical Physics, based in Toronto Canada has some excellent teacher resources, not only for senior years but junior years as well.
You can get them here. Very comprehensive, with files, videos, full lesson plans, with explanations. Best of all they are free - ScoolLab - the educational outreach from CERN and based there, ScoolLba website has a number of resources to teach modern Physics, including 3D printing files
- 3D quark. model - article from AAPT Physics Teacher journal about using 3D quark models, written by Julie Woethe who directs School Lab
- A better way to teach color as charge for quarks - article on an alternative way to teach anti-colour in quarks . Written by Jeff Wiener, in charge of teacher outreach at CERN, and designer of School Lab
- Other particle accelerators resources - Fermilab, SLAC, ANSTO Synchrotron
- Quantum 3 - this is a great educational app to teach the quark combinations for various hadrons. Better than playing Candy Crush :-)
Tools for Diagrams from oPhysics by Tom Walsh
Graph Maker - useful if you need graphs for images and mathematical problems
Mechanics Drawing Tools - allows you to construct diagrams needed for mechanics topics,
Circuit drawing Tools - electrical circuit diagrams made easy
Mechanics Drawing Tools - allows you to construct diagrams needed for mechanics topics,
Circuit drawing Tools - electrical circuit diagrams made easy