The programs are planned to appeal to and meet the science expectations of students in grades 7-10. Two high school students guide the viewer through explorations of physics in popular areas of teenage interests - sports, music, and dance.

The teacher guide presents activities that promote student interaction with others and the environment. It also offers opportunities for students to construct ideas and relationships through engagement and exploration. As students demonstrate or verbalize their conclusions, the teacher can provide the explanation and vocabulary to support student findings or to stimulate further questioning. Lessons challenge students to design, predict, and/or calculate; offer ideas for the inclusion of reading, writing, and math activities; and provide additional resources for teachers and students.

Using the Teacher Guides

The guides are designed to help teachers extend the concepts mentioned in the video program Physics is Fun! Teacher feedback has led us to believe that these video programs may easily introduce a topic, objective, or skill, and encourage continual classroom discussion throughout the lesson.

Each lesson includes an episode description, concepts and/or vocabulary, preview discussion questions, post-viewing activities, and print and/or Internet resources.

Both the video episodes and the teacher guide lessons, may be used independently, or they may be used together. Except for Making Waves, the segments deal heavily with the concepts of force and motion.

Most activities have discussion questions, which can help the teacher determine prior knowledge and identify preconceived notions of students. Performance of activities along with individual student journals can be used to measure various levels of student knowledge.