Videos to support remote teaching of physics

Remote teaching support for

A collection of physics video resources to use remotely with your students. Many of the suggestions can be used across different age groups with appropriate questions to test understanding.

Health and Safety Guidance

These experiments have been selected by trained teachers as appropriate for use at home, but we have not specifically tested them for home use.

All experiments are carried out at your own risk.

To avoid risk of injury or damage, we recommend that you follow the instructions as shown, and that a responsible adult supervises all practical activity and considers the suitability of each task for their child.

Teachers proposing to recommend any resources to their students should:

  1. work within safety policies established by their school;
  2. use their professional judgement to assess the suitability of experiments for their own students;
  3. direct students and their parents/guardians to follow all stated instructions.
Electricity and Magnetism

Electricity and magnetism videos

Remote teaching support for 5-11 11-14 14-16 16-19

A selection of videos to use remotely with your students.

For students aged 11-14 and 14-16:

Static electricity - ask your students to watch the following videos and try to explain the phenomena.

Demo using a charged balloon to rotate a free hanging sausage.  

Dancing cornstarch

A fun way to learn circuit symbols: Kung-fu circuit symbols

 

For students aged 14-16:

Transmission of electricity along power lines

We are electrons - revision song

 

For students aged 14-16 and 16-19:

Explaining electromagnetism can be tricky - below are a number of videos that try to explain and demonstrate different aspects of the phenomenon.

Magnetic field due to current

Creating a simple electric motor

Virtual demo of a Westminster motor kit

How DC motors work

Motor effect - showing F = BIL experimentally

Electromagnetic induction

Levitating barbecue - electromagnetic induction

How transformers work

First electric generator

 

For students aged 16-19:

Induced EMF (using a search coil)

Internal resistance and how to measure it

Creating a bin-bag capacitor

Faraday's law of magnetic induction

 

Energy
Energy and Thermal Physics

Energy and thermal physics videos

Remote teaching support for 11-14 14-16 16-19

A selection of videos that are suitable to use remotely with your students.

For students aged 11-16

Videos relating to energy stores

Pendulum demonstration - do you trust in the laws of physics?

Stacked ball drop

Energy song

Coupled pendulum experiment - students could discuss the energy stores involved


Videos relating to Energy resources

Energy use in the home - can bikes be used to power your home?

Why is the atmosphere getting warmer? 


Videos relating to thermal energy

Which freezes faster: hot or cold water?

Fireproof balloon

  • Marvin and Milo flame balloon home experiment -  instructions for students to do this experiment themselves with adult supervision.  All experiments are carried out at your own risk.  To avoid risk of injury or damage, we recommend that you follow the instructions as shown, and that a responsible adult supervises all practical activity and considers the suitability of each task for their child.
For students aged 16-19

Misconceptions about temperature

Perpetual motion machines (with references to ideal gas laws)

 

Hookes Law
Properties of Matter

Properties of matter videos

Remote teaching support for 11-14 14-16 16-19

For students aged 11-14:

  • You can remind students about states of matter in this short clip from the BBC. There are more in the series, which is found by searching for chemistry topics.
  • The changes of state are described and linked to the changes at a particle level; as is often the case for chemistry videos, the energy references may need further explanation.

For students aged 14-16:

For students aged 16-19:

Force
Forces and Motion

Forces and motion videos

Remote teaching support for 11-14 14-16 16-19

A selection of videos to use remotely with your students when teaching about Forces and Motion.

Exploring the different types of force

 

The effect of friction on motion

Force components

Resolving forces 

Newton's First Law.

Tim Peake's Principia mission to the ISS generated some excellent videos that students of all age groups will benefit from. Others in the series include:

  1. Principia - Spinning ball on a string then released generates a distance / time graph

  2. Principia - Momentum: Small mass into large mass

  3. Principia - Momentum: Large mass into small mass

  4. Principia - Momentum: Two equal mass head on side view

  5. Principia - Momentum: Equal mass inelastic velocity / time graph

Newton's Third Law

This is a video from Veritasium. Other videos from the same source include:

  1. Misconceptions about falling objects.
  2. The difference between mass and weight

Suport for plotting motion graphs can be found from Science Shorts. This one covers distance-time graphs. 

A similar video for velocity-time graphs can be found here.

SUVAT equations

Circular Motion

There are many other videos in the Hewitt-Drew-it collection

The Monkey and Hunter demonstration of projectile motion

 

Our own IOP Coach, Lewis Matheson, produces some excellent videos on his channel. The playlist on Elasticity includes: 

As well as:

  1. Springs in Parallel and Series
  2. Energy in Springs
  3. Stress, Strain and Young's Modulus
  4. Stress-Strain graphs
  5. Ductile and Brittle Materials
  6. Behaviour of Rubber

 

Star
Earth and Space

Earth and space videos

Remote teaching support for 11-14 14-16 16-19

A selection of videos to use remotely with your students.

For students aged 11-14:

Phases of the Moon

Models of the Solar System: Earth, Sun & Moon

The Scale of the Universe

For students aged 14-16:

Dark Matter is a Circus Master in the Universe

How Big is the Universe?

For students aged 16-19:

A Universe of Waves

Alice & Bob in Wonderland: Is that star really there?

Alice & Bob in Wonderland: Why is it dark at night?

Alice & Bob in Wonderland: What keeps us stuck to the earth?

Black Holes, Neutron Stars & White Dwarfs

Brief Guide to the Galaxy

Classroom Demonstrations: Redshift

Gravitational Lensing with Tape and Saucer

Gravitational Waves: A New Window to the Universe

Where was the Big Bang?

Introduction to Galaxies

More resources, selected for remote use with your students, can be found in COVID-19 support.

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