Tomorrow I teach the third class in my current homeschool physics course. The first one went really well, the second one was a total disaster, and I’m hopeful tomorrow will be even better than the first!

The struggle is real

Physics has a reputation for being hard. And it can be. I try to make it accessible to my students by using hands-on learning. The struggle comes because when you are teaching homeschoolers, you can never be sure of their existing knowledge. That’s especially true when the students range in age from 10 to 17.

And it turned out I had over estimated what they could handle in my second class. We were supposed to build three circuits to demonstrate how capacitors work, Ohm’s law, and measuring current flow. Way too hard after only one lesson and we didn’t get past current flow. They weren’t ready for it.

Making adjustments to fit the class

So tomorrow, I’m taking a different approach. I’ve pre-built two of the circuits we’ll be using so they can just observe the behavior and learn how it works without stressing over plugging in little parts.

I’ve also built some completely ugly screens to use to view magnetic fields.

See? It is ugly, isn’t it? Iron filings are captured between two plates of acrylic glass and sealed with silicone. The students can play with the magnets and “see” the fields they create. Much lower tech and easy to understand.

Explaining capacitors

The first picture shows the circuit that we were supposed to build last class. There is a switch that alternates between a loop with the capacitor and another with a flashing LED. The students flip the switch to charge the capacitor, then flip it back and watch the LED light up. Over the course of about 30 seconds, the LED slowly loses power.

The second picture shows the LED lit up.

Flipping coins

One way I wanted to change things up is to do something really fun. In this circuit, we use an electromagnet, permanent magnet, and a coin to show how powerful magnetism can be.

When the power is turned on, the permanent magnet wants to align with the magnetic field created by the electromagnet. If we put it on with the fields reversed, it will “jump” to try and get into alignment. The coin placed on top of the magnet “flips” when the magnet jumps off.

It sounds fun, doesn’t it? It actually scared me the first time I did it! I tried to catch a video of it. I promise it’s the current that makes the coin flip and not the table being knocked or anything.

My hopes are high

So I’m hopeful tomorrow will go really well. I’ll be able to capture their attention and their curiosity without overwhelming them. I think magnetism is probably one of the coolest and my favorite areas of physics. It’s only second to quantum mechanics. And I haven’t yet figured out how to teach that to anyone without the requisite physics background – but I’m going to keep trying.

I’ll post after my class and let you know how it goes – and what I have planned for next week.

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