Torque Kinesthetic Play

Related Physics Education Research

None that I know of.

Overview of Worksheet

This is not an experiment, but gives the students an opportunity to play with torque. Students are given an opportunity to sit on a rotating chair and see the effects of moving a bicycle wheel or their arms. They also have an opportunity to observe and understand precession of a wheel.

There are some class management issues here, since it is not valuable for all the students to watch while every other student gets to sit on the chair. I usually have at least enough stations of interesting things for students to do, so that there are no more than four or five students in a group. Sometimes one of the stations is not a lab, but a problem solving station.

Approximate Time

For one group, the precession discussion takes 20-30 minutes, and the rotating chair takes 15-20.

Required Student Background

Students do need to understand the basic concepts of torque. This can be a good place to introduce conservation of angular momentum.

Connections to the Tutorials

This activity compliments the rotation tutorials.

Required Equipment

Rotating chair, bicycle wheel with central handle and supporting string. Any other toys (gyroscopes) can also be used.

Evaluation of Worksheet

We compared the performance of two groups. One group did the activity, the other group did not. Of the students who did the activity (n=16) 62% correctly answered a question on precession. Of the control group (n=134) 18% correctly answered the question.