Supporting Physics For All
Supporting Physics for All
Physics Toolbox for Career Awareness
This month we had an opportunity to use Physics Toolbox Play in a number of different contexts. We believe that outreach is especially important in closing the gap in exposure to physics: only 40% of U.S. students take high school physics, and there is significant underrepresentation of women, African Americans, Latinos, and Native American, Alaskan, and Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders among those who graduate with a bachelor's degree in physics. (See these statistics and learn more from the American Institute of Physics).
This past Saturday, we were invited to engage with high school students and aspiring STEM majors at the DC Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Alumni Network for a STEM Career Awareness Day.
A total of 51 students participated in sessions to learn about smartphone "senses," accomplish the physics tasks, and learn about sensor applications in physics-related careers. About 15 students from the Gaulladet Model Secondary School for the Deaf were also in attendance, and, with support from interpreters, were all successful at completing the tasks, including those with sound. Hosted at the regional Kaiser Permanente headquarters, the on-site video crew also came to check out what was going on.
The week prior, we were also able to engage with early elementary and upper middle / high school students at the American Center for Physics' Take Our Daughers and Sons to Work Day. With a little bit more whole-group guidance for the younger students, all participants from age 7 to 15 experienced success in completing the 7 challenges associated with Physics Toolbox Play!
Physics Toolbox Color Generator
Supporting across the Android and iOS Platforms
We are slowly working to make our apps available across both platforms. Our first major update is the creation of Color Generator for iOS. In the near future, watch for updates on the existing Suite app for iOS to make it have equivalent funcionality and look as the Android version.
Physics Toolbox in Support of Medical Advancements
We were contacted a few years ago by Dr. Deborah Gilmour of the University of Queensland and the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital in Brisbane regarding her use of Physics Toolbox in her research. We are honored that she used our application in the study of stressors on neonates during transfer and retrieval -- times when very young children must be transported between medical centers for life-saving care. Sound, light, and vibration can all impact a child's outcomes. Her findings show that calibrated smartphones can be used in this monitoring in place of more cumbersome equipment.
New Video from Arturo Quirantes
El ascensor engorda?
Spanish physics professor Arturo Quirantes has re-made one of his popular videos explaining the equivalence principle, featuring Physics Toolbox's reading of g-force.
Amusement Park Physics Season
Get ready for doing physics at amusement parks this spring and summer. Fisidabo is another event in the world-wide phenomena involving secondary and college physics students completing projects at the park. Learn more at one of our heritage blogs.
Quick Lab Idea
What is the relationship between a colored substance's concentration and the light that can be transmitted through it? Learn more about this by reading "The Beer Lambert Law Made Easy" referenced in this month's publications list.
Photo Credit: Glen Gilchrist
Physics Toolbox around the Web
We are always curious to learn about how Physics Toolbox is being employed in education and industry around the world. Here are a few references using or citing the work of the Physics Toolbox team.
Malus' Law
In 2017, our Uruguayan friends published a popular piece, "The polarization of light and Malus' law using smartphones" in The Physics Teacher. This work has apparently set of a chain of articles in other languages, heavily inspired by the original work.
This Mandarin-language article in Chinese Physics Education uses a traditional optical bench and Physics Toolbox Light meter to observe changes in transmitted light.
This Thai-language article reproduces the experiments in the original article.
Acceleration Due to Gravity
We've seen a lot about pendula and measuring g, but this is perhaps the first English-language article that uses changes in ambient light to measure frequency.
Angular Momentum
This pre-publication looks at using Physics Toolbox Gyroscope to solve some traditional physics problems.
Beer Lambert Law
This article is replete with data about light absorption at various frequencies, and using Physics Toolbox Light meter to accomplish that goal.
Have Physics Toolbox Apps been useful to you? We'd love to get your feedback on this quick 5-minute survey.
Have a great story to share about how you are using Physics Toolbox Apps? We'd love to feature you and your ideas in our newsletter or on our website! Drop us a message at any time to share your story.
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