Enjoy a good (physics) demonstration

Who doesn’t enjoy a good (physics) demonstration? They are just fantastic and offer many wonderful possibilities to show the beauty of science and amaze students. If done properly, they can also engage students in critical thinking and teach them aspects of (e.g.) scientific inquiry. But in order not only to fascinate students, but also create a meaningful moment (educational wise), one has to consider the pedagogical approach. Hence, we created the online open access book ShowthePhysics: https://interactivetextbooks.tudelft.nl/showthephysics/. This book provides a collection of 99 demonstrations which originated from the three Dutch NVON volumes ShowdeFysica. The book includes demonstrations, videos of these, per demonstration a description of a proper pedagogical approach, python simulations, opportunities to fully analyse data in the browser (using Python). Moreover, we included several chapters on the general pedagogy of physics demonstrations, and emphasized the different learning goals that can be attained.  

The demonstrations are categorized as nature of science; scientific inquiry; conceptual development or special occasions. So, whether you want to deepen students’ understanding of a specific topic, want to engage them in thorough thinking, or if you were asked to demonstrate physics on a festive occasion, you can find demonstrations and inspiration in this book.