Ithaca College

An Inquiry-based Course Using “Physics?” in Cartoons and Movies

Michael Rogers
The Physics Teacher -- January 2007 Volume 45, Issue 1 pp. 38-41

The core premise of my School of Humanities & Sciences Honors Seminar is that the physics we see in these media are "real." We see the events occur, so they must be real. Instead of being skeptics when we watch these unusual and sometimes usual events occur students form multiple working hypotheses that might explain the events they witness. Taking a very Newtonian view of the worlds we are studying students extract position versus time data using VideoPoint software (other software such as Vernier's LoggerPro can also be used, but currently does not have all of the features of VideoPoint). Line fitting to these data results in an equation of motion informing the students about the acceleration (which is frequently zero), the speed, and the initial conditions. These data and line fits are used to test student's multiple working hypotheses. In the grand tradition of experimental science the students often find themselves forming new hypotheses and questions. Students report their results in written reports and oral presentations.