Suchai Nopparatjamjomras

DEVELOPMENT OF STEFAN-BOLTZMANN BOARD GAME BASED ON GAME CHARACTERISTICS

The purposes of this study are to develop Stefan-Boltzmann board game and evaluate the components (main board, metal hexagon, self-card, information card, and action card) based on five game characteristics which are competition and goals, strategy and tactical, challenges, rules, and fantasy elements. The topics covered by this board game are Stefan-Boltzmann‟s law, radiation power emitted by object, absolute temperature, area, and emissivity. The game characteristics of the board game were assessed by a Physics lecturer and a game expert via a set of 5-point Likert scale assessment tool during the implementation of the board game. The participants were four Indonesian students who had a bachelor degree from faculty of Education and were taking a one year course for the professional physics teacher certification. The score of „main board‟ for each game characteristics are 3.5, 3.5, 4, 5, and 4.5 respectively to competition and goals, game choices, challenges, rules, and game fantasy. In addition, a semi-structured interview was used to collect students‟ opinion on game characteristics that will be used to improve the board game in the future.

Newton's third law on a scale balance

We propose a series of experiments involving balance readings of an object naturally floating or forced to be partially or fully immersed in water contained in a beaker sitting on an electronic scale balance. Students were asked to predict, observe and explain each case. The teacher facilitated the learning by asking probing questions, giving hints and helping in the drawing of the free body diagrams. From this guided enquiry, students improved their understanding of the involvement of Newtons third law in each experiment.

A Magnetic Set-Up to Help Teach Newton's Laws.

A set-up comprising a magnetic disc, a solenoid and a mechanical balance was used to teach first-year physics students Newtons third law with the help of a free body diagram. The image of a floating magnet immobilized by the solenoids repulsive force should help dispel a common misconception of students as regards the first law: that stationary objects are not being acted on by any force at all. Dropping the magnet onto the electrified solenoid, which can change polarity, can lead to more sophisticated elaboration of the second law.

Using students’ misconceptions of primary coloured lights to design a hands-on coloured light mixer

A surface mount typed multi-coloured Light-Emitting Diode (LED) is used as a light source for the hands-on coloured light mixer. The LED consists of red, green and blue tiny sources but the mixer is designed to have four switches corresponding to red, green, blue and yellow light. These colours correspond to students’ misconceptions of primary coloured lights; they realize that the primary colours and the rules for lights mixing are the same as those of paints. To generate a yellow light, a microcontroller placed between four input switches and the LED operates both a red and green tiny sources. In addition, the microcontroller is employed to eliminate some combinations of coloured light mixing to simplify the experiment (basic mode) for non advanced students. If the mixer is used with more advanced students, a number of combinations will increase and students need more analytical skills to find out the primary coloured lights (the coloured lights that can not be produced by the mixing of any other coloured lights). Therefore, the mixer is able to use with more advanced and non advanced students depending on the program in the microcontroller and some modifications of the circuit. Furthermore, to introduce students an idea that other hues or shades can be generated by mixing of these three primary coloured lights of different intensities, a tuning circuit is integrated to vary an intensity of the green light source.