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TEMPLATE DESIGN © 2008 www.PosterPresentations.com Creating interactive animations for teaching science Bekolay, Trevor 1 , Metz, Don 2 , Klassen, Stephen 2 , Martin, Brian 3 , Mahaffy, Peter 3 Introduction The interactive animations described here were created with Adobe Flash CS3, using ActionScript 3. Some collaboration was made possible with Adobe Dreamweaver. Flash has the advantage of being inherently visual and cross-platform. Flash animations can be embedded in a website and used on any platform with a Flash-capable web browser. Materials and methods Applications Acknowledgments Rutherford scattering Electricity Roemer’s experiment Kinematics The Rutherford scattering applets aim to demonstrate and explain Rutherford’s gold foil experiments, which first observed an atom’s nucleus. The first applet presents a historical recreation of the Geiger-Marsden experiment in which the existence of the nucleus was first established. The applet can be used to generate data for student analysis. These animations can be used in many different contexts: 1.As a pre-lab exercise. 2.As a replacement for a physical lab where equipment is too expensive or dangerous. 3.As an augmentation to a lecture or lab exercise. 4.As a visualization of a concept or demonstration. 1 Department of Computer Science, University of Manitoba 2 CRYSTAL Manitoba, University of Winnipeg 3 King’s Centre for Visualization in Science (KCVS), King’s University College, Edmonton And the other members of KCVS: David Dystra, Naomi Mahaffy, Ben Scott, Amanda Thompson, and Kristen Tjostheim Scientists use models to understand the world around us. Those models form the base of more complex concepts and theories. In today’s science education, there is a tendency for educators to teach problem solving recipes for problem types, and for students to learn those recipes by rote. The underlying concepts, while plainly obvious to the expert, are not well understood by the novice. Interactive animations aim to improve the conceptual understanding of students by illustrating the models underlying the problems they are learning to solve. In this applet the user can investigate the behaviour of alpha particles as they interact with various nuclei. Data can be represented graphically or in tabular form for further analysis. The first determination of the speed of light was made by Ole Roemer using the motions of the moons of Jupiter. This applet simulates a simplified model of Earth’s orbit around the sun, and Io’s orbit around Jupiter to assist a student in making a rudimentary calculation of the speed of light. This applet closely examines a copper wire in four different situations dealing with electricity. Each situation contributes to an overall understanding of the underlying physical processes associated with electricity. The first frame shows the copper wire at equilibrium – that is, with no charge running through it. The second frame shows the copper wire with a transient current. A transient current exist only briefly before the negative and positive electric potentials even out. The third frame shows the copper wire connected to a constant source of charge, a battery. The wire visibly heats up as electrons move through the wire and bump into copper atoms. The fourth frame shows the copper wire connected to a strong source of charge, a power supply. The wire heats up and eventually burns out.

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Creating interactive animations for teaching science Bekolay, Trevor 1 , Metz, Don 2 , Klassen, Stephen 2 , Martin, Brian 3 , Mahaffy, Peter 3. Introduction. Rutherford scattering. Electricity. Roemer’s experiment. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 1: Creating interactive animations for teaching science

TEMPLATE DESIGN © 2008

www.PosterPresentations.com

Creating interactive animations for teaching scienceBekolay, Trevor1, Metz, Don2, Klassen, Stephen2, Martin, Brian3, Mahaffy, Peter3

Introduction

The interactive animations described here were created with Adobe Flash CS3, using ActionScript 3. Some collaboration was made possible with Adobe Dreamweaver.

Flash has the advantage of being inherently visual and cross-platform. Flash animations can be embedded in a website and used on any platform with a Flash-capable web browser.

Materials and methods

Applications

Acknowledgments

Rutherford scattering Electricity Roemer’s experiment

Kinematics

The Rutherford scattering applets aim to demonstrate and explain Rutherford’s gold foil experiments, which first observed an atom’s nucleus.

The first applet presents a historical recreation of the Geiger-Marsden experiment in which the existence of the nucleus was first established. The applet can be used to generate data for student analysis.

These animations can be used in many different contexts:

1.As a pre-lab exercise.2.As a replacement for a physical lab where equipment is too expensive or dangerous.3.As an augmentation to a lecture or lab exercise.4.As a visualization of a concept or demonstration.

1 Department of Computer Science, University of Manitoba2 CRYSTAL Manitoba, University of Winnipeg3 King’s Centre for Visualization in Science (KCVS),King’s University College, Edmonton

And the other members of KCVS:David Dystra, Naomi Mahaffy, Ben Scott, Amanda Thompson, and Kristen Tjostheim

Scientists use models to understand the world around us. Those models form the base of more complex concepts and theories.

In today’s science education, there is a tendency for educators to teach problem solving recipes for problem types, and for students to learn those recipes by rote. The underlying concepts, while plainly obvious to the expert, are not well understood by the novice.

Interactive animations aim to improve the conceptual understanding of students by illustrating the models underlying the problems they are learning to solve.

In this applet the user can investigate the behaviour of alpha particles as they interact with various nuclei. Data can be represented graphically or in tabular form for further analysis.

The first determination of the speed of light was made by Ole Roemer using the motions of the moons of Jupiter. This applet simulates a simplified model of Earth’s orbit around the sun, and Io’s orbit around Jupiter to assist a student in making a rudimentary calculation of the speed of light.

This applet closely examines a copper wire in four different situations dealing with electricity. Each situation contributes to an overall understanding of the underlying physical processes associated with electricity.

The first frame shows the copper wire at equilibrium – that is, with no charge running through it.

The second frame shows the copper wire with a transient current. A transient current exist only briefly before the negative and positive electric potentials even out.

The third frame shows the copper wire connected to a constant source of charge, a battery. The wire visibly heats up as electrons move through the wire and bump into copper atoms.

The fourth frame shows the copper wire connected to a strong source of charge, a power supply. The wire heats up and eventually burns out.