Don’t Throw Away Your Old Overhead Projectors: Upcycle to Easy Physics Demos Instead
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Sarah Lynn McGregor
[1]
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Keith Goodale
[1]
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[1] Keene State College
Keene State College
City of Keene, Estados Unidos
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- Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 63, Nº. 2, 2025, págs. 107-109
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
Demonstrations play a crucial role in the physics classroom, providing students with tangible experiences and visual representations of abstract concepts, especially when they are actively engaged with the demonstrations.1–3 By observing demonstrations, students can witness the principles of physics in action, reinforcing their understanding of fundamental laws and theories, helping to bridge the gap between theory and practice, building conceptual knowledge, and battling misconceptions around phenomena. However, demonstrations can sometimes be tricky to present or not easily scalable to large classroom audiences. This is where an overhead projector comes in handy. Although the primary purpose of an overhead projector in the classroom has been replaced by PowerPoint presentations and computer simulations, we should not forget about the overhead projector’s potential for innovative demonstrations. As lectures transition to PowerPoint, many institutions have old overhead projectors gathering dust in the corner or have thoughts of throwing them away. Instead, let’s consider saving them from the junkyard and upcycling them for demonstrations. Possibilities include demonstrations of polarization,4 dispersion and phase structures,5 subtractive color mixing,6 X-ray diffraction,7 the Coriolis effect,8 acoustics,9 standing waves,10 atomic models,11 buoyancy,12 centripetal force,13 an air table,14 Coulomb’s law,15 or a current balance.16 Here we present several other easy demos from our physics and astronomy courses using an overhead projector and other common materials to convince you not to toss out your overhead projector!
