Recent content by moilnir

Yes, ban them.

A tennis ball will fall rather fast. I got my pupils to use plastic cups, these fall slower because there is more friction with the air. We found a suitable height (7m) on the stairs and dropped them. Using masses from the lab, which we put inside the cups held with Bluetak, we obtained a range...

This is the sort of rubbish that Physics teachers say. If it were just memory, it would be easier than Physics & Chemistry. However, it isn't - ask students taking all three. The memory is the easy bit. The problems for students start when they are given data and have to interpret it, based on...

Independent variable - what you changed. Dependent variable - what you measured. Control variables - anything that you kept constant so that it did not affect the results. Maybe voltage, or length of wire. Reliable - nowadays this seems to mean "did you repeat it and get similar results"...