Physics Lab Station Investigations
The following is a complete list of lab activities from PASCO's Physics Lab Station Investigations manual. You may preview and download individual student lab activities as well as view detailed information regarding what files are included.
Grade Level: High School
Subject: Physics
Activities
01) Position, Distance, and Displacement
Students will explore and discover the difference between position, distance, and displacement using graphs of their own motion.
02) Newton's Second Law
Students measure the force on a cart and its resulting acceleration for a modified Atwood machine. They vary the weight on the hanger and create a graph of force vs. acceleration. They discover the relationship between the force on the cart, acceleration, and mass.
03) Modeling the Force of Friction
Students measure the force of kinetic and static friction between a friction tray and dynamics track using a wireless force sensor. They vary the weight of the tray to gather five data points and create a model for kinetic friction. They use their model top predict the force of kinetic and static friction and then test their prediction.
04) Designing and Testing Crash Cushions
Students measure the acceleration of a cart as it collides with a solid barrier and a simple crash cushion. Students use their data and Newton's Second Law to help design and build an improved crash cushion that reduced the maximum acceleration experienced in a second collision.
05) Impulse and Change in Velocity
Students collide a cart into a spring bumper attached to a force sensor, while simultaneously measuring the velocity of the cart before, during, and after the collision using a motion sensor. They use their force and motion sensors to graph impulse versus change in velocity and find that the slope of that graph is equal to the mass of the cart. Students also discover the impulse momentum equation, and use the equation to answer a series of questions.
06) Change in Kinetic Energy
Students use a modified Atwood machine to study how the change in kinetic energy is related to the net force applied and distance travelled. They use sensors to collect position, velocity and force data. They analyze the relationship between the kinetic energy of the cart and the distance it travelled, discovering the work-energy theorem.
07) Atwood Machine
Students set up an Atwood machine using a Wireless Smart Gate and pulley. They collect acceleration data for a system, keeping the total mass constant while varying the difference in the weight of the two hanging masses. They graph the difference in the weight versus the acceleration and discover the slope is the total mass. The equation of their line allows them to make predictions about the acceleration of an Atwood machine they did not measure.
08) Angular Velocity and Centripetal Acceleration
Students explore the relationship between centripetal acceleration and the rotational speed of an object.
09) Rotational Dynamics
Students use hanging masses to apply torque to a rotating arm and measure its angular acceleration. After varying the torque, they experimentally determine the mathematical relationship between net torque and angular acceleration.
10) Rotational Collisions
Students measure the change in angular velocity when a rotating disc experiences a sudden change in rotational inertia.
11) Simple Pendulum
Students test different variables to see which affect the period of a simple pendulum.
12) Properties of Sound Waves
Students will learn the meaning of terms (frequency, period, crest, trough, amplitude, wavelength and wave speed) used to describe waves by studying sound waves from tuning forks captured on an oscilloscope display. They will learn how to measure some of these quantities and discover the relationships between them.
13) Measuring the Speed of Sound with an Echo
Students will first predict the speed of sound in the air of their classroom using a simple relationship accounting for temperature. Students will measure the time it takes a short pulse of sound to travel the length of a tube, reflect off the closed end, and return. Using this measurement, they will calculate the speed of sound and compare it to their prediction.
14) Decoding DTMF Tones
Students will use a wireless sound sensor and the fast Fourier Transform (FFT) display of the data collection software to analyze the tones produced when dialing a phone. They will uncover the pattern of these dual frequency tones showing the first frequency gives the row of the key on the numeric keypad and the second frequency gives the column. From this information they can determine what key is pressed without seeing it.
15) Magnetic Field Strength
Students use a magnetic field sensor to measure the magnetic field at the center of a coil at five different current levels. Students plot magnetic field strength versus current and analyze the relationship between the them.
16) Magnetic Field of a Permanent Magnet
Students measure the strength of the magnetic field surrounding a permanent magnet as a function of the distance from the magnet.
17) Ohm's Law
Students measure the current and voltage across a resistor while varying the output voltage, A graph of voltage versus current will reveal Ohm's Law. This version uses the wireless AC/DC module to vary the voltage.
18) DC Circuits
Students construct a circuit consisting of two resistors in series and then in parallel. They measure the voltage across the resistors, and the current through the resistors. From their measurements they can infer Kirchhoff's loop and junction rules.
19) Capacitors and RC Circuits
Students construct a circuit that charges and discharges a large capacitor through a light bulb. They create a model for their observations and test the model with current sensor data. They measure the voltage across a smaller capacitor as it is discharged through a resistor and calculate the capacitance from the data.
20) Fruit Battery
Students will construct an electrochemical cell using common materials. They will explore how the voltage changes as the cells are connected in series.
21) Blockly Extension: Acoustic Stopwatch
Students develop Blockly code that uses data from a Wireless Sound Sensor to trigger start and stop timing, effectively creating a stopwatch that starts and stops using loud sound commands.
