PSI Ramps Up Labs

More Robust Labs Now Available for Algebra-Based Physics

Responding to teacher feedback, PSI now offers stronger labs to support algebra-based physics. New materials include:

• An increased number of labs with high, medium, and low tech equipment options;


• An enhanced teacher guide for each lab;


• More detailed student handouts;


• Presentations teachers can use to introduce and increase student engagement with the lab;


• Post-lab questions that allow students both to contribute data and to express their understanding of lab content and process, organizing their thoughts in writing; and


• Quizzes that insure all students are able to analyze the lab experience and recreate the experiment.

Yuriy Zavorotniy, Program Director for the Lab Project, has worked closely with Jerry Kaiser, Curriculum Writer to enhance PSI’s lab offerings. Both are physics teachers as well. Zavorotniy teachers at Bergen Tech in Teterboro and Kaiser at Columbia High in the South Orange-Maplewood District.

Explaining his approach to enhancing the lab curriculum, Kaiser reflected on his experience as a first-year PSI teacher saying, “I felt the need for a more complete understanding of the labs, so that I could better anticipate my student’s needs.” Now, Kaiser has worked to create teacher guidebooks to each lab. The guidebooks spell out how to set up the labs, tips on timing, best practices, and options for materials to use.

Lab materials now also provide low tech (home kitchen level), medium tech (hands on physics lab level), and high tech (digital and computer assisted measurement level) versions, so that regardless of the sophistication of a school’s resources teachers can undertake the lab.

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