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Education

Science/Physics/Education is for EDUCATIONAL web sites of interest to educators, parents, students and professionals emphasizing the teaching or learning of various aspects of physics or physical science. The best sites will try to teach or instruct about physics or physical science, though clear, easy-to-follow explanations of topics are useful as well. There are both a Science/Chemistry/Education and a Science/Biology/Education category here at ODP, and they may be more appropriate for some site submissions. This category is not for software or selling of products.

There are both a Science/Chemistry/Education and a Science/Biology/Education category here at ODP, and they may be more appropriate for some site submissions.

This category is not for software or selling of products.

more information (editors only)

Demonstrations

This section is about demonstrations of physical phenomena, mainly physics or physical science, appropriate to various age groups. It is NOT intended for sites which want to sell demonstration or lab products. There is a 'suppliers' page elsewhere for that.

Directories

Link collections, as found in this category, are sites specializing in listing other sites-- in an organized way. In this case, if someone has organized many physics or physical science sites at some page, it gets a listing here. If a page has too many dead links, however, it might not stay in this category.

Lesson Plans

Here are sites which either directly have free lesson plans or they nicely collect links to free lesson plans for PHYSICS or PHYSICAL SCIENCE. The assumption here is that the lesson plans are for kindergarten all the way to 12th grade in the American school system. College lesson plans are welcome, but they are rare and hard to find. Curriculum products for sale are not acceptable for this category. There is a different category for physics curriculum. Lesson plans must be available NOW as opposed to being available for purchase. Products available for free may be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Mailing Lists

Listservs for physics educators.

Mechanics

Resources for the teaching of kinematics and other topics related to classical Newtonian theory, at the school and freshman levels.

Note that only resources related to the teaching of the basic applications of mechanics (in general at the freshman (1st year of university under the US system) level or below) will be accepted in this category.

Specifically, advanced courses on Classical Mechanics will not be covered in this category. These sites will be in Science: Physics: Classical Mechanics: Courses. Whilst it is very difficult to give a careful delineation, courses with a major focus in the use of the following theorems or mathematical techniques should in general be listed there:

Hamilton''s principle of least action; Euler-Lagrange equations

Fictitious forces in rotating frames of motion

Normal mode formulation and the use of matrix techniques for solving equations of motion

as well as more advanced topics or other topics of similar level that are not listed here.

Personal and Class Pages

Sites created by teachers or groups of teachers with the intent of supplementing the teaching of physics, mainly to high school students.

Many physics and engineering classes have serious and for-fun egg drop contests with various sets of rules. This category is for pages explaining and reporting about such contests.

Publications

Publications related to teaching physics at any level. They may be subscription-only or free.

Research

Physics Education Research (PER) is research about learning and teaching physics, NOT research about physics topics such as particle physics or determining the Hubble constant. PER is a multidisciplinary science involving both education departments and physics departments at a number of colleges throughout the world.

Tutorials

If you were going to refer someone to a good single tutorial on a physics subject, hopefully you would find it here. Many sites on the web are 'about' a topic, but don't try to teach it. This category is intended to link to sites that competently and thoroughly teach a physics topic. It is apparent to this editor that sites like that are fairly hard to find.