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Math Formulas

Questions Answered: Physics 1 Laboratory Manual

1. Who's the new guy collaborating with you on this project?  

Two words... ROB MAIER. We collaborated so well together. Rob is a good friend of ours, and he's absolutely brilliant. He has 30 years of teaching experience in the classroom, and a background in mechanical engineering. He's a very humble person but has the gift of breaking down super complex topics and making them accessible to any student, which is one of the reasons he's so impressive. The torsion balance video below should give you an idea!

Rob Maier - co-author of the Science Outside Physics Laboratory Manual

2. What makes this lab manual unique? 

All of our activities are built from the ground up. Some are completely unique and others are revamps of traditional labs with which you may be familiar. To start, we've added  introductions that include the history behind the concept to give students a macro understanding of how the physics field was developed. Most of the laboratory investigations have original video recordings demonstrating how to set up the lab and collect the data. Check out the video below for some highlight clips!

Each activity comes with three variations of the lab. The teacher edition has our personal thoughts and recommendations for the teacher in red print. Each teacher edition also comes with sample data sets of real data that we personally collected, and a full answer key with all of our work.

The remote student edition is a unique feature in our collection where we've actually put together sample data for students who may be absent from your classroom, learning virtually from home, or homeschooled. Even if you find yourself in a time constraint but you still want to go through the concepts and idea of the lab, you can hand them a copy of the remote student edition. The activity will either include sample data or a video where a student can collect data by watching us perform the procedure.  

Finally, the student edition is just a standard blank template that students can use in-class. Please feel free to download and check out our free lab Atwood's Machine which includes all three editions. 

3. What's new with the 2nd Edition of the laboratory manual?  

We're glad you asked (haha). The 2nd edition has an entirely new unit, FLUIDS!! If you're teaching AP 1 Physics, we've put together 11 fluids demonstrations and 5 lab activities to make the transition in fall 2024 very smooth. We cover all the bases of density, pressure, Archimedes' Principle, Bernoulli's equation, and Terricelli's theorem through fun, engaging, and tactile activities. In addition, we have updated several labs from the 1st edition! 

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