About the Science Reasoning Resource CD


UPDATE: We have postponed this project due to the urgency of several others. We hope to resume work on it in the near future. Sorry. 
TPC
7/17/2019


A Resource CD is currently being prepared to accompany this section of the website. The Resource CD will provide teachers with an even wider repertoire of tools for cultivating and assessing science reasoning skills. The CD will provide a teacher of physics with a bank of passages and questions similar to the smaller selection available here on the website. While the passages on this website typically are accompanied by 8-12 questions, the passages on the CD contain considerably more questions. The additional questions provide a teacher an opportunity to customize an activity for their own students or to simply use a selection of questions for an in-class activity and to use a different selection of questions for an at-home activity. Additionally, there are approximately twice as many passages on the CD compared to the number of passages present here on the website. With extra passages and extra questions, the CD makes the online Science Reasoning Center look like the tip of the iceberg. Equipping teachers with more questions and more passages gives them more flexibility and more choices regarding how they cultivate science reasoning skills within their curriculum. All this content - the additional questions and the additional passages - is present as Microsoft Word files and thus is fully editable and customizable.

The Resource CD also contains answers and explanations for all passages - both the passages on this website as well as the additional passages present only on the CD. The explanations are thorough and complete; they are written in a language that a student would likely understand. The user agreement accompanying the Resource CD allows teachers the right to print and duplicate hard copy versions of the documents for their students and to place the electronic documents on password-protected websites that are assessable by their students (but not by the general public).

To most effectively use this resource, it is important that a teacher provide students with questions that are at their specific reasoning level as well as questions that stretch them towards higher reasoning levels. For this reason, each question in every passage is coded to a specific science reasoning level. The science reasoning standards used by The Physics Classroom's Science Reasoning Center are the College Readiness Standards published by the ACT Corporation. This linking of questions within every passage to specific science reasoning standards allows teachers to intelligently craft passages with questions that meet students where they're at and stretch students to where they need to be.

Finally, each passage is accompanied by tips and usage suggestions, links to related information, and (where applicable) Microsoft Excel spreadsheet files that were used as sources of the data that were included in each passage. The Excel files were designed with the end user in mind. Columns are labeled and input parameters are clearly identified so as to make them easily modifiable. With minimal knowledge of Microsoft Excel, a teacher could easily modify the spreadsheets and create new data for use in a passage, an assignment, or even a quiz or test.

The Resource CD is currently under production. Once complete, it will provide a physics teacher with a repertoire of tools for cultivating and assessing science reasoning skills. It is projected that the CD will be completed sometime during the Fall or Winter of 2014.

Contents of Resource CD:

The table below provides a rough estimate of the contents of the CD. Since it is currently a work in progress, the details are subject to change.

1-Dimensional Kinematics

Kinematics

59 Questions

Incline Kinematics

25 Questions

Position-Time Graphs

17 Questions

Velocity-Time Graphs

19 Questions

Stopping Distance

27 Questions

Newton's Laws of Motion

 

Bricks and Bands Lab

43 Questions

Friction

44 Questions

Skydiving

??? Questions

Friction, Speed and Stopping Distance

40 Questions

Coffee Filter Physics

33 Questions

Fan Cart Investigation

??? Questions

Acceleration of Gravity Lab

50 Questions

Projectile Motion

 

Up and Down

30 Questions

Maximum Range

41 Questions

Maximum Range II

42 Questions

Maximum Range Explained

68 Questions

Projectile Launcher Labs

67 Questions

Ballistics

27 Questions

Juggling

39 Questions

Vectors and Forces in Two Dimensions

 

Forces at Angles

??? Questions

Exploration of Inclined Planes

??? Questions

Momentum and Collisions

 

Marshmallow Launcher

32 Questions

Football Helmets

??? Questions

Baseball Momentum

??? Questions

Collisions

23 Questions

Air Bag Inflation

15 Questions

Car Crash Data

??? Questions

Energy

 

Push the Plow

??? Questions

Incline Energy

17 Questions

Incline Energy II

29 Questions

Hot Wheels Stopping Distance

20 Questions

It's All Uphill

??? Questions

Baseball-Bat Collision

34 Questions

Craters

??? Questions

Circular Motion and Gravitation

 

Weightlessness

20 Questions

Toy Train Physics

??? Questions

Roller Coaster Loops

44 Questions

Aerobatic Gs

??? Questions

Planets

31 Questions

Law of Harmonies

21 Questions

Thermal Physics

 

Heating Curves

37 Questions

Thermal Insulation and R Value

??? Questions

Linear Expansion of Metals

33 Questions

Pipe Insulation and Heat Transfer

??? Questions

Electrostatics

 

Charge It!

??? Questions

Charge Interactions

22 Questions

Sticky Tape Experiments

21 Questions

Lightning Rods

??? Questions

Electric Circuits

 

Bulb A versus Bulb B

27 Questions

Resistivity and Resistance

38 Questions

Battery Comparison

??? Questions

Ohm's Law

24 Questions

Series versus Parallel Circuits

31 Questions

Wire Gauge

53 Questions

Vibrations and Waves

 

Vibrating Springs

??? Questions

Period of a Pendulum

35 Questions

Mass on a Spring

31 Questions

Surface Waves

??? Questions

Speed of a Wave

22 Questions

Standing Waves on a Rope

46 Questions

Sound and Music

 

Intensity and the Decibel Scale

30 Questions

Sound Loudness and the Sone Scale

65 Questions

Sound Waves

29 Questions

The Sound of Music

45 Questions

Reverberation and Acoustics

??? Questions

Light and Color

 

Electromagnetic Spectrum

34 Questions

RGB

??? Questions

Light Brightness

55 Questions

Cell Phone Radiation

14 Questions

Shedding Light on Light Bulbs

22 Questions

Reflection and Mirrors

 

Object-Image Relationships

24 Questions

Concave Mirrors

35 Questions

Mirror Magnification

51 Questions

Refraction and Lenses

 

Refraction Action

??? Questions

Snell's Law

26 Questions

Least Time Principle

??? Questions

Reflection and Transmission

62 Questions

Images Formed by Lenses

17 Questions

Camera Focus

53 Questions

Lens Magnification

68 Questions