Second Nature.
Physics 3,4 spring 2020
This quarter, we will each use our home environments as a physics textbook. Each week the class will investigate a new topic. Everyone will replicate an experiment, discuss its strengths and weaknesses, then remix it to better suit their environments. Documentation of everyone’s best home experiments will be curated into a physics “cookbook” at the end of the quarter.
Frequency Illusion: once you've noticed a phenomenon, you think it happens a whole lot, even "all the time". Your estimates of frequency are likely to be skewed by your noticing nearly every occurrence that comes past you.
What will we learn about Physics by increasing our awareness of Physics phenomena in our daily lives?
Can we hijack the way our brains function to learn something new by accident?
How can each of our lives instruct us about the nature of reality?
To what degree are we in control of our nature as people?
Frequency Illusion: once you've noticed a phenomenon, you think it happens a whole lot, even "all the time". Your estimates of frequency are likely to be skewed by your noticing nearly every occurrence that comes past you.
What will we learn about Physics by increasing our awareness of Physics phenomena in our daily lives?
Can we hijack the way our brains function to learn something new by accident?
How can each of our lives instruct us about the nature of reality?
To what degree are we in control of our nature as people?
Deliverables
We will prototype a new physics demonstration each week for 7 weeks. This will include research and an original demonstration. These will be documented in weekly blog posts. In the final week everyone will choose their favorite 1 - 2 topics to add to our class's "Physics Cookbook".
Inspiration
This is a instruction booklet for making inflatable sculptures that I've always liked. Its funny and low tech and inspires me to make things.
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This website is just interesting science gifs. I think our finished cookbook could look just like this, with student descriptions of their original demonstrations linked to each gif
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