May-June 2009
Things in Motion: Newton's Laws

A child rolls a ball toward a set of stairs and watches as it bounces down. Each successive bounce is higher. But sometimes the ball hits the very edge of the step, and it goes off at a shallow angle. “What if I roll it harder next time? How many steps can I make it jump at once? What if I use a smaller, bouncier ball?” the child might ask. This kind of exploration is the very basis for investigating the laws of motion in which most of us have participated and brilliant minds have articulated for thousands of years.

With screens blinking in front of our students more and more, and a prevalence of structured time, as a group, students have less experience in playing around or “messing about,” with physical objects in motion. Our job as educators is to surround them with opportunities to observe, question, test, and think critically about what they see and do. The following stories do just that. They embed the explorations of motion in the study of Newtonian physics. Here, translated from the Philosophić Naturalis Principia Mathematica, are Newton’s three laws of motion:

1. Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed.
2. The change of momentum of a body is proportional to the impulse impressed on the body, and happens along the straight line on which that impulse is impressed.
3. For a force there is always an equal and opposite reaction: or, the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions

We hope this issue gives you the impulse and direction to get moving with your students.

March-April 2009
Science More than a Method

The twenty-first century skills that are referred to so often name science and math as important components. For some students, this may mean a firmer grasp of science and math concepts that they can apply to their varied work and family environments. For others who will work directly in math and science fields, these skills are even more essential.

Collaboration, communication, teamwork, problem solving, and asking productive questions take on more and more importance.

At the same time, the careful steps of the scientific process retain their value in pursuing and documenting research. As Bob Coulter writes in this issue, "The mental discipline brought about by logical thinking, controlled comparisons, and managed variables all contribute to students' cognitive growth." However, Coulter continues, "The limitation of the scientific method appears when it is the only view of science in the curriculum. For students to develop a healthy understanding of science and its importance in their lives, we need to go further."

The idea of going beyond a strict definition of science and how we approach it was emphasized by Columbia University's Brian Greene (New York Times, 6/01/08) who wrote, "Like a music curriculum that requires its students to practice scales while rarely if ever inspiring them by playing the great masterpieces, this way of teaching science squanders the chance to make students sit up in their chairs and say, 'Wow, that's science?'"