A quick lesson plenary with a couple of on-screen questions about SHC, in an “underline the correct answer” format. The first 2 slides are the questions only, you could give those to students either on paper or electronically, the other slides animate the answers once they’ve had a go.

This is pretty much an whole lesson, but you’ll need to insert your own half life calculations worksheet (I have one that I like, but i didn’t write it so can’t include it here). The lesson centres around eating chocolate M&Ms. Or Skittles if you prefer. The idea is to have something that gives you ‘heads’ or ‘tails’ when tipped out onto the desk. See www.darvill.clara.net/nucrad for more gcse radioactivity stuff.

Introduction to SHC, with sample calculations & a quick practical with a kettle.

Use a simple pendulum and a known value of g to measure Pi. A puzzle for KS5 students, presented as ‘confirm that our region of spacetime can be considered locally flat’. Let them wonder for a bit, then tell them they’ll be given a lump of metal, a ruler, stopwatch and a bit of string, and see where the discussion takes you. Opportunity to really go for those uncertainties - if you don’t get a result that you can believe in to 3 or 4 sig figs then you haven’t really tried! Original idea from Matt Parker https://twitter.com/standupmaths who has an unhealthy fascination with Pi.

Print one set of cards per group. Each card names an energy resource, e.g. Fossil fuels, wind power, etc. The last card has instructions, e.g. sort the cards into fossil fuels vs others, sort them into renewable vs non-renewable, sort them into ones that use the sun vs those that don’t. See www.darvill.clara.net/altenerg for a complete web site on this topic where pupils can research it all.

Remove the turntable from the microwave oven, place a large bar of chocolate in there (maybe raise it a bit on a plastic plate). Run the microwave oven, with luck and skill you can get melted chocolate spots at the antinodes. Measure the distance between the spots, double it and you have the wavelength. Look up the frequency on the back of the microwave oven, use the wave equation and calculate c. Then eat the chocolate.

Get students talking about refraction.

A short powerpoint to introduce the idea of rms speeds of molecules and rms potential difference.

Nice illustration of Fleming’s left-hand rule. Welcome to the home of hi-fi! Come to think of it, this setup would probably also work as a microphone connected to a CRO if you yelled at it close-up. Must try it sometime.

How to choose the correct fuse for an appliance, and what happens if you get it wrong.

Intro powerpoint , and a worksheet where students use a=(v-u)/t and v^2 =u^2 + 2as in calculations.

Do your students have the mistaken idea that a force is needed in order to keep something moving? Find out, along with some other misconceptions, with this quick powerpoint.

Do your students have a good grasp of how current behaves in series & parallel circuits? This quick powerpoint will get the conversation started.

A source emits alpha, beta and gamma. but how much of each? This sheet give pupils a chance to figure this out using a bit of subtraction as different absorbers are put in front of the source. See www.darvill.clara.net/nucrad for more gcse radioactivity stuff.

This was inspired by Gethyn Jones at emc2andallthat.wordpress.com https://emc2andallthat.wordpress.com/2019/10/27/fifa-for-the-gcse-physics-calculation-win/ I turned his idea into a powerpoint & worksheet.

A multiple-choice quiz written in PowerPoint with hyperlinks, then exported as a pdf. Formatted so it’ll fit nicely on a phone screen. A simple idea which I came across on [The Physics Teaching Podcast]https://the.physicsteachingpodcast.com/). I’ve included the PowerPoint file so you can edit or adapt it if you feel the urge.

Powerpoint to show the task, and printable cards.

A multiple-choice quiz written in PowerPoint with hyperlinks, then exported as a pdf. Formatted so it’ll fit nicely on a phone screen. A simple idea which I came across on [The Physics Teaching Podcast]https://the.physicsteachingpodcast.com/). I’ve included the PowerPoint file so you can edit or adapt it if you feel the urge.

A multiple-choice quiz written in PowerPoint with hyperlinks, then exported as a pdf. Formatted so it’ll fit nicely on a phone screen. A simple idea which I came across on The Physics Teaching Podcast. I’ve included the PowerPoint file so you can edit or adapt it if you feel the urge.

A quick lesson plenary with a couple of on-screen questions about the relationship between electrical resistance and the length of a wire, in an “underline the correct answer” format. The first slide is the questions only, you could give that to students either on paper or electronically, the second slide animates the answers once they’ve had a go.