U of T Lab Practical 2: “Electricity, Magnetism and Geometric Optics”

" This workshop will be run using the environment, pedagogy and equipment of the newly combined tutorials and laboratories in the large first-year physics courses at U of T. Participants will work in teams of 3 or 4 at separate tables, or pods. After a brief introduction, two Instructors roam the room and help pods with guided activities, some of which use hands-on apparatus and/or computers. The activities will be interrupted with a demonstration and an interactive discussion question. The first activity will involve scotch-tape, a plastic rod and fur, and a glass rod and a piece of silk. Participants will perform a series of simple experiments leading to the ideas of conservation of electric charge, the direction of electric force for positively and negatively charged objects, and the inverse-square law for electric force versus distance. Another activity involves a light-box which produces several parallel rays of light which shine across a piece of paper on the table. Several flat objects are provided which reflect and refract the light, and participants will investigate the law of reflection, Snell’s law of refraction, total-internal reflection, and the properties of lenses. The instructor-lead demonstration uses a battery, wire, compass and an overhead projector to show how electric current can produce a magnetic field. "

Jason Harlow completed his undergraduate degree in Physics at the University of Toronto in 1993, and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Penn State University in 2000.  He spent several years teaching undergraduate physics and astronomy courses at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, before returning to U of T.  Jason is now a Lecturer in the Physics Department at U of T, which is part of the Teaching Stream Faculty.  His main area of interest these days is in Physics Education Research and how to best help students learn.