Nuffield Physics: Teachers’ Guide I

Nuffield Physics Teachers’ Guide I included a general introduction to the course as a whole followed by specific guidance on the first year of the programme. The authors were very concerned to explain the spirit in which the course should be taught. They asked teachers to consider that they were encouraging young scientists to make their own gains in knowledge, and a little in skill. The teaching was based largely on first hand experience and experiments carried out by the students. Teachers were asked not to rush through the material, and were reminded that there was no piece of material in the first-year course which could not be learnt very easily later on if missed at the time.

Contents

• GENERAL GUIDANCE
• General introduction
• Background information
• General teaching notes
• Preparation of experiments by teachers
• Nuffield Chemistry and Nuffield Physics Programmes
• The role of the word constant in science
• 'Work': Years I, II, IV *Conservation of energy: Years I, II, III, IV
• 'Perpetual motion': Years I, II, IV
• Getting tired when holding a load at rest
• Units
• Interaction
• Vectors
• Teaching electrostatics with electrons
• Logic and voltmeters
• Proportionality
• Condensing the guide to a syllabus?
• Outline Years I, II, III, IV, V
• Appendix I: The aims of science teaching - teaching Science for Understanding
• Appendix II: Examinations
• GUIDE TO YEAR I
• Preface to Year I
• 1. Materials and molecules
• 2. Making a microbalance
• 3. Rough measurement
• 4. Looking for a law of levers
• 5. Investigations of springs
• 6. Air Pressure and molecules
• 7. Measurement of a molecule
• 8. Energy