Equation recall test

This was supposed to be a really quick job. For something I’m working on, I was looking at the equations students need to recall for the GCSE Physics exam (specifically AQA). And it annoyed me that they weren’t in a useful order, or a useful format for testing. So I’ve made a testing sheet, with pages for Energy, ‘mostly Electricity’ and Forces.

There are four columns, which are blank in the first three pages (for students) but completed in the answer sheet version. Because I’m good to you.

Download eqn testing sheets as PDF

Equation for…

I’ve given the word, not the symbol – thoughts? (Could/should that be another column?) I’ve removed a couple of what I see as duplications, and missed out momentum because I was thinking of this as for everybody. Plus it would have mean adding another row and I was sick of messing with formatting.

Which variables are involved?

For students to write in the variables in words, as a starting point. The idea would be that you can give partial credit for them getting part way there, because we should recognise the early stages of recall. You may off course have them skip this bit later on.

What are the symbols?

If they know the variables, can they write down what they will look like in the equation? This would be the other place for them to show they know what the ‘equation for…’ variable could feature in symbol form.

Equation

Formatted as best I can, in a hurry in Publisher. I’ve used the letters as listed on the formula sheet, p95 of the specification. Even when I disagree.

As ever, please let me know if/when you spot mistakes. Because it’s in Publisher I can’t upload the editable version here, but drop me a line in the comments if useful and I’ll send it your way.

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Energy Language Thoughts Part 4

Parts 1 (Introduction), 2 (Pathways/Processes) and 3 (Stores) are all available and will help make this more useful. Please continue to comment, on whichever post seems most relevant, if you’ve any queries or suggestions. Thanks to those who have already done so.

Practical Approaches

The IOP guidance begins by taking snapshots before and after an event and describing the changes to various possible associated stores. The alternative is to think about the physical processes – which will be variably familiar to students, depending on age – and thinking about the effect they have on parts of the system. YMMV.

The famous energy circus can be used, but be cautious! Some make much clearer examples than others. In most cases you will need to be very specific about the start and end points you wish the students to consider. I recommend checking out the SPT guidance. In particular, the ‘one step at a time’ diagram shows why chains of energy can cause problems. The suggestion there, which I endorse, is that you:

1. start with the idea of fuels ie chemical stores
2. make clear that fuels limit effects, they don’t by themselves cause the effects
3. give high, hot and stretched objects as equivalents, but as they’re clearly not fuels we associate them with
4. gravitational, thermal and elastic stores respectively

Explained at SPT

I’d suggest looking at your energy circus for clear demonstrations of these to begin with. Next would come a kinetic store, probably as an endpoint. A gyroscope or Newton’s cradle is a nice example of a kinetic store which lasts long enough to be plausible.

Approaches to consider

You could have a first round to develop some basic ideas, then a second with more complex snapshots (either more than one store involved at the end, or the same kind of store but associated with different objects).

Have students identify just the stores to begin with, discuss them as a class, then come back and add descriptions for the processes. This could be split between lessons; that way you can provide correct stores in the second lesson and concentrate on processes. In some cases, such as the classic filament bulb, two similar pathways will be needed.

• From: thermal store of filament
• Via: heating by visible radiation, heating by IR radiation
• To: thermal store of air in the room

If you want them, here are energy-circus-cards as pdf (includes example and blank cards)

Provide sets of laminated cards with stores, and arrows for the descriptions of processes. Labelled arrows are of course an option, but be aware of limitations and I’d include some blanks.

Again, cards-for-energy-v3 as pdf to save you a few minutes.

An extension could be to suggest measuring equipment and/or units for the relevant stores in each situation. If returning to these examples at GCSE, then recall of the equations are the natural next step.

Consider including actual photographs for some situations that cannot be easily reproduced in the lab; this would be a good way to introduce some examples from biology and chemistry. A food chain in biology might, for example, be described so:

• From: chemical store of lettuce
• To: chemical store of rabbit

Then

• From: chemical store of rabbit
• To: thermal store of rabbit, kinetic store of rabbit, chemical store of fox

And finally

• From: thermal store of rabbit, kinetic store of rabbit
• To: thermal store of air

For chemistry, exothermic reactions will involve heating by particles and/or heating by radiation pathways. If the material explodes (which in my experience is the preferred result) then there is some kind of mechanical working too, yes? Be prepared for questions about state changes; the best approach is that latent heat means the thermal store is not only identified by the temperature change. Which, yes, is a complication.

It’s probably worth adding notes – mental or otherwise – to the other science topics so you can remind students of the new language. If you have particular queries, drop me a line in the comments or, for a more considered answer, join in with the discussions on TalkPhysics.

This seems like a good chance to consider the Big Ideas in Science Education. Which should be up anyway, somewhere, but it’s always nice to have a reminder.

Exams and Textbooks

This is where I must admit defeat. I know – in fact I started the first post in this series with this point – that teachers want to know what will get marks and what won’t when it comes to the exams. Sadly, I don’t know. At least one board used the old language in the sample papers originally made available. The list of stores is not consistent between boards, though I hope that makes more sense after Part 3. And so on.

I’m sure we’ll all be happier once we see more examples of possible questions, but I’m not involved much with the boards so I have no insight. My advice – which isn’t official IOP guidance, nor is it specially informed – is that if your students can explain the mechanisms behind the transfers, they shouldn’t need to worry about the language, either pathways or processes. For the stores, it’s probably more important that they can identify the equations that are relevant and be able to do the maths – that, of course, hasn’t changed! I’ve recently discovered that Richard Boohan is putting together some materials; I shall be watching with interest.

Whether students will be penalised for talking about light energy, sound energy, electrical energy – that I don’t know. I also don’t know how much emphasis will be placed on this language by those marking biology and chemistry questions. So I’m not much good, really. Sorry!

Last appeal for comments, feedback, criticism… please let me know what you think of these four pieces. At well over 3000 words I appear to have accidentally written an essay. I hope that if you’ve waded through it, you feel it was worth your time. Please do give me a shout if there’s something I can do to improve the time spent vs time saved ratio.

Energy Language Thoughts Part 3

As you would expect, this follows on from Part 1 (Introduction and Summary) and Part 2 (Pathways/Processes). Even if you’ve read them, you might want to look back at the comments readers have made  – many thanks to everyone who has been able to take the time.

Descriptions vs Labels: Stores

The stores are not simply renamed ‘energy types’. A lot of them use similar words, but that’s because they’re trying to describe the same physics. They represent the changing properties of a part of the system, caused by it gaining or losing energy. When a steel block undergoes physical processes, it changes in a measurable way. It might change shape. Its temperature might change. It might be moved away from the Earth’s surface. It is a shame that exam boards are taking different approaches, but the eight suggested by the IOP are:

• chemical store
• thermal store
• kinetic store
• gravitational store
• elastic store
• nuclear store
• vibration store
• electric-magnetic store

More details at SPT

Like the processes, there are sometimes more than one way to consider what is happening. If a gas is heated, the change could be considered in terms of the measured temperature change (thermal store), or in the increased movement of the particles (kinetic store). Realistically, there are not many situations where two stores will seem equally appropriate. And when they are, this is actually a strength. The two approaches will give values for the energy change which are the same. Energy is energy, whether it is considered in the context of a thermal or kinetic store. The whole point of using energy as a ‘common currency’ is that is translates between contexts.

The stores, as discussed in my introductory post, are each a way of considering a physical measurement and an associated equation. The idea is that you consider the ‘before’ and after’ situations for relevant stores, as snapshots. (The exception, for school-age students at least, is a chemical store where the values are found empirically.) I produced, based on some ideas from IOP colleagues, some energy store ‘bookmarks’ which bring together the different aspects. They wouldn’t take long to put together, but you’re welcome to my version:

stores-bookmarks as pdf

Common Variations

The vibration store can be considered as a kinetic store which oscillates. The easier measurement is not speed but amplitude and time period. Imagine trying to find a meaningful value of the speed of a swinging pendulum, for example. But some boards are omitting it, which is fairly easy to justify.

I’m less happy that at least one exam board (AQA) miss out the nuclear store entirely. This seems like a huge mistake to me as it uses the one equation pretty much everyone knows from physics, E = mc2! It would also make it impossible to start with the sun, which makes most biology a bit tricky. (From nuclear store via particle heating processes to sun’s thermal store then via radiating processes to Earth’s thermal store and biomass chemical store)

The electric-magnetic store – not electromagnetic – is about the position of objects within two kinds of field. Now, I know they’re related – Maxwell’s equations and all that – but I think for most students it’s a lot easier to consider two separate stores, the magnetic and the electrostatic. The upside is that this means you can clearly link them to gravitational stores and so cover fields as a ‘meta-model’. The downside is that it makes the stores list look even more similar to the old approach. If you take this tack, make sure you emphasize that it’s an electrostatic store to clearly distinguish from the electric current pathway.

Which brings me to…

What about light/sound/electricity?

The SPT resources have some very good explanations on this. My reasoning is that they are processes which only have meaning if we think about duration. To describe them in numbers, we use power in Watts rather than energy in Joules. So they are, obviously, real physics effects. But they fit best into this model as processes shifting energy between stores, rather than stores themselves.

Disclosure: my issue with this is that a very strict interpreation of thi would seem to rule out kinetic stores as well. The snapshot approach – comparing the change to stores in between two static frames – makes it hard to reconcile a moving object with a single instant. Hmm. Although we have no problem with considering momentum at a moment in time, yes? Contrariwise, students may have an image of light as being made up of photons as moving objects, or when older the equation E=hf. Hmm again. And what about latent heat? This is best considered as a special term of the thermal store, but it’s not obvious. (Thanks to my colleague Lawrence Cattermole for reminding me of this today.) Of course, no model is perfect. The test is whether this approach is better than the ‘types’ of energy approach that has been so pervasive.

‘Better’, of course, is not a very scientific term! It is more accurate when describing the physical processes. The words are a closer narrative match to the equations students will need to use as they develop their physics. The model is different to what we and our students are used to, but objecting to it on that basis seems short-sighted. As I originally said, you could argue that the timing is unfortunate, with new specs and grading systems, but I don’t think we’d ever be at the point where all science teachers welcomed a change with open arms.

As always – please comment, respond, shout angrily at me using the field below.

Energy Language Thoughts Part 2

The previous post was a summary or introduction – thanks to all those who have commented already – and tomorrow I’ll be moving on to stores in more detail. But for now…

Descriptions vs Labels: Processes

To make life easier, humans like to use shorthand for complex processes. These are categories or labels, not detailed descriptions. Many pathways or processes can be put into one of these categories, but the aim should always be end up able to describe what is actually happening.

• Heating by particles
• Radiating (aka heating by radiation)
• Electrical working
• Mechanical working

Longer explanation at SPT

How we choose these categories will alter our interpretation. For example, are sound waves a form of mechanical working? Or do we include all waves in the ‘radiating’ category? The physics description of what is happening is what we and our students should be concentrating on, because it doesn’t change. The ideas about Johnstone’s Triangle that I’ve read about via Michael Seery’s blog, from chemistry education, has obvious parallels.

Reproduced from Michael’s post, credited to University of Iowa.

If we can link the macro (observations in lab) and sub-micro (particles and interactions) levels, the symbolic can wait. A similar discussion is had on SPT about alternating between the lived in world and a theoretical model.

Avoiding using these categories – which by their very nature are imprecise – might be worth considering. It would be very easy for students to think they have to assign any physics process to one of the four listed above, without really thinking through what’s happening. (If you’d like to consider symbolic approaches, I’d suggest checking out the physical versions of energy bar charts as described here by Greg Jacobs.)

As pointed out by several – most recently Richard Needham on Twitter – changing how energy is described in physics lessons means nothing if we can’t apply this to biology and chemistry. And it needs to make more sense there too! In school chemistry, heating and radiating (in the form of light-emitting) will be the significant processes. The equations used later on for enthalpy change – endo and exo-thermic reactions and so on – work nicely with this framework. In school biology, the transfer of energy is usually about photosynthesis (a radiating pathway fills a chemical store by the production of glucose/oxygen) or nutrition/metabolism. (More about stores in the next ‘chapter’.) One of my jobs is to have a closer look at the KS3 specification for any mention of energy in chemistry and biology and see what I’ve missed – please let me know in the comments if this has been done already!

I’ve heard – and contributed to – discussions about other possible pathways, perhaps useful for younger students. The regular suggestion is reacting, which would include chemical reactions in cells (aka metabolic-ing) as well as the lab. The shift happens between two chemical stores. The physics process, if we look closely enough, is about electron exchange between atoms. But I wouldn’t want to have that level of explanation in a year 7 lesson! As ever, the question is about us choosing a realistic level of detail for our students at any particular time.

The Power of Processes

I wrote earlier that we weren’t interested in how quickly a process worked. That’s obviously not always true; rates are very important in physics! So the process can happen quickly or slowly, which changes the magnitude of the final change in the relevant stores. This tells us that processes are about power, not just energy. (Thanks to Brendan Ickringill who pointed out the word rate is important.) The analogy I use is that of the carbon cycle. Asking how much carbon is ‘in’ plant biomass at any point is a meaningful question, if not an easy one. But it makes no sense to ask how much carbon is ‘in’ combustion, or any other process. They are rates, not amounts.

My colleague Trevor Plant reminded me of the need to change how we use Sankey diagrams for this new approach. The width of the arrow can now describe the power of the process, transferring or shifting energy between stores. A lot of the same questions could be asked, and efficiency is still a helpful consideration. We’d now think about useful processes (with values in watts) and wasteful or dissipative ones. As ever, we’d need to distinguish between similar processes; for example, energy shifted to the thermal store of water in a kettle is useful, whereas heating of the air around it is not.

Effectively what we’re doing here is describing what the ‘magical arrow of energy transfer’ is symbolising. A useful resource is a set of laminated arrows which students can write on for descriptions of the physical processes. You could provide some with descriptions on them, but the danger is that the class – or the loudest member of it – will then choose a best-fit rather than something more accurate. If you also supply laminated cards – as boxes, not arrows – with the eight stores on them, they are ‘encouraged’ towards the new model. These might be particularly useful to analyse a chosen selection from the famous energy circus.

On this theme, I produced some cards to go on the electrical sockets in the lab. The idea is to remind students that the current comes from somewhere else, and that the electrical supply is a pathway/process, not a store. Download below.

power-stations as pdf

As before, I hope the discussion here is useful – and please respond in comments if there’s something I’m missing out! Next post will be looking at stores in more detail, then hopefully a last one at the weekend on practical approaches and ways to adapt what you used to use!

 

Revision Templates, Organised

A perpetual classroom problem is that students translate what we say into what they want to do. How many times have you come back from time off to see that students answered questions 1 and 10, not 1 to 10? Sometimes this is deliberate awkwardness. Sometimes it’s an actual lack of understanding, either of what the task was or why we’re asking them to do it in what seems ‘the hard way’. I’ve long been a fan of the template approach, giving students a framework so they’ve got a place to get started. And I produced a bunch of resources, some of which may be useful for you. I’ve shared these before, here and there, but figured a fresh post was worthwhile. This was mainly prompted by a tweet from a colleague:

You know when you set ‘revise for the test’ as the homework and the class hear ‘no homework this week’? That. 😭#markingtests

— Helen Rogerson (@hrogerson) October 3, 2016

So here’s a quick reminder of some printable resources. I’m not going to go through and remove the QR code, but it now goes to a dead link. Feel free to mess around with them as you see fit.

• review-hw
• review-c-words
• lessons-cornell
• hwtaskdifficulties
• exams-written-as
• exams-maths-qs
• blank-revision-checklist-and-priorities
• lesson ticklist
• exam paper debrief
• learningtoolkit (20 pages for displays)
• eca boosting grade (Biology example)
• Quarters Revision
• Concepts Cues Consequences
• answers_and_questions

Some of these can be downloaded as Office files, mainly docx and pub (links to a GDrive folder). There may also be jpg versions available for adding to Powerpoints or websites. If there’s no editable version of an example above that you’re after, add a comment here and I’ll dig it up.

If you’ve not already seen it (not sure how, but it’s possible), can I strongly recommend the excellent posters and resources available from the team at @acethattest, AKA The Learning Scientists. On my long and growing jobs list is producing some Physics specific versions to show how they could be applied within a subject.

 

 

Data Analysis Questions

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve recently been doing some freelance work in a local school. The role is short-term and has an interesting mix of aims, but one part is to work with Year11 students on data analysis questions. Now, obviously I’ve taught these skills before. But I’ve not previously used the OCR B specification before, which features a final data question worth ten marks. I know this is running out soon but thought it might be worth sharing what I’ve created.

Firstly, a plea to all exam boards. When you release Examiners’ Reports – which are really useful, please keep doing it – can you combine them with the markscheme for easy reference? It’s something I’ve done for a while but it would make much more sense for you to do it.

2014

• exam paper 2014 P456 H Qs p26-29
• combined markscheme and examiner’s report  2014OCRBGatewaySectionD

2013

• exam paper 2013 June H p30-32
• combined markscheme and examiner’s report 2013JuneOCRBGatewaySectionD
• Stopping distance card sort

Specimen

• exam paper specimen P456 p28-31
• markscheme with blank column SpecimenOCRBGatewaySectionD

Predictably, the specimen paper isn’t a great example to use. I’ve not included the 2015 paper because many schools will be using it for preparation in controlled conditions. The links above are to my own copies in case OCR rearranges their site with the new specifications, and I’ve added the Section D page details to the filenames to make life easier for colleagues.

It seems a good time to remind you all that in the past I produced quite a few resources for looking at past exam papers, mostly AQA. The tags on the right should make it fairly easy to find them.

When we used these in class, one of the outcomes was that students put together a list of “things to try if you’re stuck”. Now, for many pupils this will have been built in to their teaching, but we all know that kids don’t always absorb what we’re hoping they will. I think the real value of this is to generate a list with your own students, but for your interest:

1. Highlight or underline numbers in the question
2. Draw lines from the axes at specified values so you can find the corresponding value
3. If the question is about differences, you’ll need to add or subtract
4. If the question is about rates or uses the word ‘per’, you’ll need to divide or multiply and you might need to think about gradient or slope

Comments and suggestions welcome, as always.

 

 

Medical Careers

Apologies if this is a repost, but I can’t find it anywhere even though I created it ages ago. I, like many science teachers, have found that kids have tunnel vision when it comes to careers. Medicine, for a variety of reasons, is a real target for many of them. For some it’s a totally unrealistic one. The progression (anecdotally) goes like this.

• At the start of Yr12, more than 30 in a year of 120 were ‘going to be doctors’. When it is pointed out that we might send two or three off to medical school in a good year, there are blank looks. Even asking “Are you one of the three smartest students in the year?” doesn’t reach everyone.
• By halfway through the year, more than half of the students now know medicine isn’t happening for them. They immediately start looking at Pharmacy.
• By the start of yr13, with results in hand (and yes, I know that’s changing) we used to be down to between eight or ten with a reasonable chance. Some of those who had hoped for Pharmacy are now clinging to the hope of Biomedical Science. And have a private tutor.
• By Christmas, a few more are being realistic and have switched to other plans; I’ve found they’re a bit more open-minded, but it’s marginal. I had one student tell me they now wanted to do theoretical physics as it was the next best thing to medicine.
• At Easter, between six and eight think they’ve got a reasonable chance; two or three of those might actually get in.

What’s interesting is that hardly anywhere in this do they consider other clinical options that aren’t Medicine. (Some, of course, started off hoping for Dentistry or Veterinary.) It’s as if the vast majority of medical roles, working with patients and using highly technical skills, simply pass them by. So I created a list, not intended to be exhaustive, which is linked below. Perhaps useful to kick off discussion if nothing else?

medical careers as .docx file

medical careers as .pdf

 

AQA 4/6mark Qs

The shortest post ever (to make up for the 1500word epic of the weekend): I’ve organised AQA questions from past papers with markschemes and examiners’ report comments. The 16 pages of this .pdf have the 4 and 6 mark questions at the front, followed by the relevant marking guidelines and what the examiners had to say afterwards. Last minute but possibly useful today?

6 mark Qs blog as .pdf

Core Physics revision sites handout

This second post in a day will be even briefer than the last. After complaints from my Year 10 students that they couldn’t possibly be expected to find good websites by themselves – yes, I know – I produced a quick handout listing a few URLs and comments for them. I was going to put it on the VLE, but realised it would be much more likely to be used if they had instant access, so added QR codes and gave them printed copies. Of course they were very appreciative for me giving up my break this morning to make this for them.

Stop laughing.

Anyway, here it is as a pdf. It’s got two identical pages because that was the fastest way to print off A5 versions, although it does mean there’s a bit of wasted space.

Now, as this has quite possibly saved you a few minutes, I have a request to make. Use two of those minutes to add to my portfolio. Simply follow this link and tick a few boxes, no names necessary, so I can show how what I do helps people outside my immediate school. Many thanks.

Waves Revision (AQA P1)

Another quick one, but hopefully useful for those helping students prepare for GCSE Physics; our specification is AQA and the exam is P1, but I hope it will be more generally helpful than that.

Download waves bestof3 as .ppt

Starter: Choose three words to define

You could have students write down their ideas, include some hints or simply Think/Pair/Share. I like to have one student share their idea, then have another try to improve it, or say what’s good about it. The words are in alphabetical order but you could easily differentiate this activity explicitly if preferred.

Main1: Best of 3

Each slide shows three possible statements or answers to a question. I give students a minute to choose a particularly good or bad answer by discussion. They must be able to improve it and I then ask for suggestions before moving on to the solution slide.  They do not all have one good, one indifferent and one bad answer. There are obvious links to grade progression here and you could use mini whiteboards to ensure all are involved.

Main2: Drawing diagrams

By now students should be seeing these points as a reminder, hopefully ideas they’re familiar with from thorough and careful revision cough cough. Based on their answers and difficulties I would then split them into groups to practise individual elements, from rehearsing fundamentals to more challenging diagrams. I’ve credited the sources of the diagrams, all CC-licensed I think.

Plenary: umm…

I’ve not included one on the powerpoint but returning to key definitions would seem a good plan; ask students to state something they understand better now than they did at the start perhaps? Alternatively finish with a past paper question so they can demonstrate what they are now capable of.

 

Before You Go…

As usual, if you find this resource useful, or adapt the idea to your own teaching, I’d really appreciate you taking a moment to add to my portfolio. Simply follow this link and tick a few boxes, no names necessary. Many thanks.