Students built a parallel-plate capacitor with aluminum foil and paper, and used it to find the dielectric constant of paper.

I use this lab early in the year to not only reinforce the content regarding the nature of parallel-plate capacitors, but to show students how to linearize data, to analyze a linear plot, and discuss uncertainty, both random errors and systemic errors. One of the most common issues I saw with student data was the dramatic non-linearity of the data at higher distances, which results from the fact that the (square root of the) area of the plates is no longer much larger than the distance between the plates, resulting in edge effects and non-constant electric field. This is a great opportunity to explain that!

Students first observe and characterize differences in the elastic nature of collisions based on the material of the objects. Then, students design and implement their own experiment to measure the coefficient of restitution for a collision where angular momentum is conserved.

These labs work best presented one right after another. I give them in back-to-back units. In the first lab, students use specific laboratory methods to work around equipment limitations, and with practice, understand how these methods achieve their goals. The second lab is one I wrote along-side my class, where I showed them the guiding question and the theory, and they developed the procedure for the lab. It uses many of the same methods as the first lab, but includes their own ingenuity in creating a pendulum apparatus, among other things. Each year I give this lab, I let the students make their own procedure. The one I have published here was written with my 2021-2022 cohort.