Explore the forces at work when you try to push a filing cabinet. Create an applied force and see the resulting friction force and total force acting on the cabinet. Charts show the forces, position, velocity, and acceleration vs. time. View a Free Body Diagram of all the forces (including gravitational and normal forces).

Explore the forces at work when you try to push a filing cabinet. Create an applied force and see the resulting friction force and total force acting on the cabinet. Charts show the forces, position, velocity, and acceleration vs. time. View a Free Body Diagram of all the forces (including gravitational and normal forces).

In this lesson designed to enhance literacy skills, students learn how the forces of gravity and air resistance affect the motion of falling objects.

This media-rich essay from NOVA Online describes the challenges of forecasting volcanic eruptions and includes information about specific cases.

Learn how to make waves of all different shapes by adding up sines or cosines. Make waves in space and time and measure their wavelengths and periods. See how changing the amplitudes of different harmonics changes the waves. Compare different mathematical expressions for your waves.

This video lesson is an example of ''teaching for understanding'' in lieu of providing students with formulas for determining the height of a dropped (or projected) object at any time during its fall. The concept presented here of creating a chart to organize and analyze data collected in a simple experiment is broadly useful. During the classroom breaks in this video, students will enjoy timing objects in free fall and balls rolling down ramps as a way of learning how to carefully conduct experiments and analyze the results. The beauty of this lesson is the simplicity of using only the time it takes for an object dropped from a measured height to strike the ground. There are no math prerequisites for this lesson and no needed supplies, other than a blackboard and chalk. It can be completed in one 50-60-minute classroom period.

In this interactive activity adapted from the University of Utah's ASPIRE Lab, investigate frequency in terms of trampoline jumps, pendulum swings, and electromagnetic waves.

Learn how friction causes a material to heat up and melt. Rub two objects together and they heat up. When one reaches the melting temperature, particles break free as the material melts away. Arabic Language.

In this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, hydrogen fuel cell cars promise pollution-free driving, but will we see them anytime soon?

In this video segment adapted from FETCH!, contestants are challenged to use materials from a garbage dump to build a boat that floats, can be steered, and is propelled by something other than oars.

Just after World War II, nuclear scientists turned their attention from fission to fusion. This video segment adapted from AMERICAN EXPERIENCE looks at the beginnings of thermonuclear power generation.

This video segment adapted from NOVA shows how Galileo, using his newly developed refracting telescope, observed four of Jupiter's moons, the first astronomical bodies to be discovered since ancient times.

Einstein called Galileo the "father of modern physics." This media-rich essay from the NOVA Web site looks at Galileo's quest to understand the mathematics of motion.

In the early 1600s, most people believed that the Sun revolved around a stationary Earth. This video segment adapted from NOVA tells how Galileo proved that the Sun, not Earth, is at the center of our universe.

This video segment adapted from NOVA shows how Galileo used his telescope to carefully observe and study sunspots.

Scientists don't always get it right. This video segment adapted from NOVA looks at Galileo's failed theory for the motion of the tides.

This video from NASA describes the GLAST satellite, which is equipped with a gamma-ray telescope, and shares some background about the kinds of extreme universal phenomena indicated by the presence of gamma rays.

This video segment from Swift: Eyes through Time introduces and explains theories of the origin of gamma-ray bursts.

Pump gas molecules to a box and see what happens as you change the volume, add or remove heat, change gravity, and more. Measure the temperature and pressure, and discover how the properties of the gas vary in relation to each other.

Generate electricity with a bar magnet! Discover the physics behind the phenomena by exploring magnets and how you can use them to make a bulb light.