Personalize Physics Problems with Student Names!

 

Surprise your students by handing them physics problems in which they are the stars! Making your students characters in their physics problems captures their attention and engages them in reading the problems as they search for their names and the names of their friends.

For years, I have been using physics practice problems with student names woven into the "stories" to provide a little entertainment while teaching Newton's laws of motion. After giving lessons on the basics of Newton's First, Second, and Third Laws, I give them problem sets in which every student makes a cameo appearance. Here is an example of one of the problems:

Liam and Yosi are installing a monument to the 8th-grade class in front of the Museum School. The monument needs to be moved to the left, so they put it on a frictionless surface and pull it along with a rope. Together they pull with a force of 500 N. The monument’s mass is 100 kg. What is the monument’s acceleration?

I am able to use the same basic problems each year but tweak them a bit by changing the students' names along with some details in the problems. For example, I might change a sport from baseball to softball. I try to create funny problems or those that incorporate students' interests. I enjoy making characters in the problems that match the different personalities in my class, and I have fun placing students in the various roles each year.

I have found that using these personalized physics problems is especially useful at times when students are feeling less engaged, such as when we near the end of the school year. My eighth-grade students are excited about graduating and moving on to their next big step of entering high school. This year the "senioritis", or "eighth graditis", has been particularly pronounced. I have actually heard students counting down the days until graduation! This is all very normal and to be expected, but as a teacher, I have to have something in my back pocket to keep them interested. I honestly didn't know how well the personalized physics problems would go over with my current eighth-grade crowd, but they actually really liked them! 

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Polymer Lab: Gel Worms

 

The "gel worm" lab on synthetic polymers is a class favorite! Students are surprised and entertained when they put their fingers into the two liquids they combined to pull out the stretchy polymer that has formed. 

This lab is appropriate for middle school students, and I have used it with students in grades seven and eight.

The American Chemical Society has created free, engaging labs that align with the Next Generation Science Standards. This polymer lab addresses the standard MS-PS1-3: Gather and make sense of information to describe that synthetic materials come from natural resources and impact society. The lab comes with a comprehensive lesson plan that compares natural products with synthetic ones, and it is a great starting point for a larger discussion on the role of synthetic plastics in our world.    

The reactants used to produce the "gel worm" polymer are sodium alginate and calcium chloride. Sodium alginate can be found online, and the most cost efficient way to purchase calcium chloride is buying unscented DampRid, which consists of pure calcium chloride and is available in hardware stores.  I find it easiest to make the solutions at least a day in advance. The first time I tried making the sodium alginate solution, I spent a long time slowly adding the solute and shaking the solution, but I couldn't get all of the sodium alginate to dissolve. I later discovered that simply letting the solution set overnight resulted in a nice solution without clumps.

If you would like to try this fun lab with your students or your own children, follow this link:

American Chemical Society Lab: Natural Resources & Synthetic Materials

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