Description

Most students now have access to devices such as digital cameras and mobile phones that are capable of taking short video clips outdoors. Such clips can be used with powerful ICT tools, such as Tracker, Excel and TI-Nspire, to extract time and coordinate data about a moving object, to produce scattergrams and to fit models. In this article we illustrate the techniques using a video clip of a student coming down an icy slope on a toboggan, and show how we can collect enough data to make a good estimate of the coefficient of friction between the toboggan and the ground.

Cross-curricular
ICT

More from this issue

Use of the 'Journalist Method' in science education is described, in which pupils are asked to create short news presentations (we call...

Jan 2010
Journal Article

A programme of parental engagement with school science is described, in which parents and their children take part in scientific debate and...

Jan 2010
Journal Article

This article reports on a study of teachers' views on the motivational value of practical work. The findings suggest that what teachers...

Jan 2010
Journal Article