Explanation

What You Will Need

This will vary depending on the experiment you choose, so you have free range to be as simple or as elaborate as you'd like. Remember that you will need to not only do the experiment but also record the results. That could be as simple as recording a set of numbers on a table, or you may need to take images or videos of your experiment. You may also find it helpful to have assistance from a classmate, friend, or family member to either do or record the experiment.

Selecting a Topic There is a wide variety of different physics experiments that you can do that relate to the material in the course. Below are links to a few of the online sites that list possible experiments. You can use one of these or find other sources of inspiration. UK Institute for Physics "Do Try This At Home": https://www.iop.org/explore-physics/at-home#gref University of Wisconsin-Madison "Wonder of Physics" http://www.scifun.org/homeexpts/homeexperiments.pdf American Physical Society "Physics @ Home" https://www.physicscentral.com/experiment/physicsathome/topic.cfm?q_topic=Force%20%26%20Motion Physics Girl 20 Home Experiment Challenge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aaXZDazPxs&feature=emb_logo

These sites contain a wide range of experiments. You need to choose the ones you find interesting and at the same time relevant to ASTRONOMY. You also need to develop a hypothesis that links what you observe to an underlying mechanism that causes what you observe and quantitatively measure what is happening.

Developing a Hypothesis and Writing a Proposal You should start by developing a hypothesis for your experiment. Your hypothesis should describe what you expect to happen and why. In other words, you should describe what physical process you think is going on to cause the phenomenon you see. Make sure you think about what the dependent and independent variables are (in other words, the cause and effect: see the Hypothesis lab for more discussion of this).

Many of the experiment descriptions in the links above include descriptions of the physical mechanism. You are welcome to use these, but it's important that you describe what is going on in your own words. Simply copying what is said on the site does not show your own understanding, and it's what you understand about the process that is important here.

Question

Your proposal can be just one or two paragraphs. This paragraph should include the following items: a description of the experiment a description of how the experiment relates to the course material your hypothesis including what you expect and why a brief summary of what quantitative measurements you expect to take and how you plan to analyze them