how to create interest in physics among students?

Question

to encourage students to study physics seriously

Answer 1

Yes, there's a lot to be said for using concrete examples that involve the students. :-)

You obviously need to conduct a variety of demonstrations/experiments. It helps if you can get the students to actually conduct the experiments themselves, rather than having the teacher do all the work. From what I understand, it's also much better to have lessons where the students are divided into groups and led to discover/derive the formulas on their own, rather than simply having the teacher present a formula up front. If the students derive the formula on their own, they tend to remember it much better.

Hopefully that helps!

Answer 2

The method you adopt to encourage students to take any subject seriously depends a lot on 3 factors. 1) The age of the students, 2) chemistry between teacher and student, and 3) how the students relate to the subject.

For younger students, adding a fun element to the subject will make the subject more interesting.

The relation between teacher and student is just as important. A teacher that commands authority without intimidating the students earns a lot of respect, and therefore attracts attention.

Finally, bringing the subject closer to the students gives them much greater interest in the subject and opens their eyes to the fascinating world around them.

Next time you will introduce students to (say) sound in a physics class, why not ask them a week earlier to bring a CD or music tape, or even a simple musical instrument to class.
Before you begin teaching, get someone to voluntarily play a tune on their instrument, or get a small collection of Cd's and play a song or 2 aloud in class. Then get them to answer questions about how they can 'hear' the music even from the back of the class. Let the discussions roam for a few minutes and listen to all contributions and show interest in their answers.

One of the students is bound to talk about how our ears are built, others will surely mention changes in air pressure, you might even have one telling you about the magnets in the speakers. Lots of fun. By now they will be all ears, and ready to listen to what you have to say.

This is just one way you could do it. There are a million things you can do with your students that would increase their own awareness.

Give it a try. It works in any subject!

Answer 3

Explain mechanics and kinematics to them in terms they will understand: whip their arses if they don't pay attention. :-)

Seriously, you can explain the role that physics plays in science. It is the master science; it is the basis for ALL other sciences. Physics is also infallible in that its laws are NEVER observed to be broken; if there is ANY exception or discrepancy, no matter how tiny, physics demands that it be accounted for. If the glitch cannot be explained through experimental error then the laws of physics themselves must be reformulated because there is never, ever, EVER any exceptions to these laws.

As such, I view the study of physics in the same light as the study of religion; both are the examination of fundamental underlying reality. However, physics is based on what ACTUALLY EXISTS and can be confirmed and reconfirmed at any time forever; while religious dogma is based on nothing but wishful thinking and the fallacies of human thought, enforced by the demand that no central religious precepts can ever be challenged. There is a clear and universal need in the human psyche to understand what is around us in the world and the heavens; religion has been our attempt to explain it by the actions of supernatural forces while physics is an attempt (started much later) to explain all that is on a rational and testable basis.

Since physics tries to teach "all that truly is", and no experimental evidence can contradict its tenets without those tenets being forever altered, all science is a subset of physics. Indeed, the only area of rational human thought that is larger than physics is mathematics, which has an eerie correspondence with deep reality.

If your students wish to understand life and the universe, physics and mathematics are simply the best tools we have.

Answer 4

Try atleast to explain the more intersting phenomena in simple terms. An intro to Einstein's relativity 101, some astrophysics(can be illustrated), radiation phenomena, quantum physics, information theory, M-theory, etc.
Try not to confuse them but to spark some genuine interest.
The experiments should not seem tedious and a sound mathematical foundation is necessary.
Evenly spread some neat experiments strategically among the scheduled lot.

Answer 5

Experiments. Demonstrations.

Electric shocks.

One of the things my old teachers used to do was to get a bucket of water and throw a handful of loose change into the bottom of it. One electrode goes in the water, whilst you hold the other in your hand.
You then have to use your other hand to try and get the coins out. Of course, completing te ciruit causes all your muscles to spasm.

Another fun thing was to light bunsen burners with your fingers.

Get a van de Graff generator, a bunsen burner and a large blcok of polystyrene.
You stand on the polystyrene and place one hand on the generator (another fun thing is to watch everyone's hair stand on end when doing that).
Connect a lead from the generator to the bottom of the bunsen .With one hand on the generator, move the other hand slowly towards the burner. Get the gas on when you're about a foot away.
Extend a finger and keep moving towards the top of the burner.
Eventually, at about 1-2in distance, a spark will leap from your finger to the burner and ignite the gas.

In short...participation! Formulae and equations are all very well, but in order to engage them, the students have to be able to SEE the things happening.

Answer 6

depends on the age of your students, but i really got into physics when my HS physics teacher started blowing our misconceptions out of the water. For example, did you know that there's alot of students who think that gravity is caused by the fact that the earth is spinning?

I never knew that people were colorblind in their peripheral vision and that our mind simply fills in the colors based on good assumptions and guesswork... to demonstrate, have someone sit down and stare at a point accross the room. they have to keep looking at this point the whole time, if they move their eyes, it messes this up. Have three items of the same shape and similar shade but different color (red, blue and green, for example)... if the shade is too different the person's brain can figure it out and fill it in... have the student stop you and guess a color as soon as they think they know what it is. start from outside the persons vision and slowly bring the object around until you enter their peripheral vision. if done properly they'll guess wrong about 2/3rds of the time... statistically what you'd expect.

or here's a good one: ask em if the earth rotates around the sun and the sun rotates around the center of the galaxy and so on, then whatever they answer, ask them to prove it. In actuality, relativity shows that we can pick ANY point as the center of the universe, so explain to them that that heliocentric theory is just current convention.

another good one is to do a demonstration of "who's stronger?" practice this a few times before you demonstrate it in order to get the dynamics right. have a chair placed right up against a wall. have a guy come over and stand with his toes together just about four or five inches from the edge of the chair. the guy then bends over until his head is just off the wall, then he leans forward until his head rests on the wall. have him reach down and lift the chair and inch off the ground. without throwing his weight backwards, make him try to just stand up... if the set up is right, he can't. have a "girly girl" (as in, not a water polo player) do the same thing. Miraculously, she can stand straight up VERY easily. The difference is that men's shoulders are generally more muscularly developed than girls and so most guys are unable to do this simple task while most girls can do it easily

Answer 7

Tell them that almost every atom in their bodies was once in a giant star billions of miles from here that exploded and sent those atoms flinging through space where they eventually got caught in the gravitational field of a large cloud of Hydrogen.

Answer 8

By making them love physics. That can be done by explaining every physical theory in details to them.

In my opinion, you should:
1-Explain the physical idea e.g.:There is a mutual attraction-repulsion forces between charges.
2-Explain the equations. e.g.:The mathematical equation of Coulomb's Law.
3-Carry out an experiment to verify the theory e.g.:An experiment to calculate the force between two small charges.

You can use the following sites to prepare your lessons:
1-Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Physics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Gravitation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Electromagnetism

2-Answers.com

http://www.answers.com/

3-Physics central.

http://www.physicscentral.com/

Answer 9

make it interesting , show them in an interesting manner and / or fun way how physics is an every day part of their life's that they don't even know ! have them find and experiment with and explain items that effect their daily life , make them think , make them have fun with it, human nature is to explore, learn, discover, go with it and let them thrive and flurish. also don't just lecture, interact, let them know that the only stupid question is the one you did not ask, and that by asking you are helping those who are too shy or afraid to ask !

Answer 10

a number of it sounds exciting for a constrained marketplace of geeks like Em and me. Are you a geek too S. D.? even with the indisputable fact that, the clinical toy isn't for the present distinct underachievers even if the massive Bang theory is universal.