A great real-life application

By adding a societal connection to an otherwise dry area of content, the author demonstrated a great way to engage students in better understanding the physics principles of pressure, buoyan... See More

By adding a societal connection to an otherwise dry area of content, the author demonstrated a great way to engage students in better understanding the physics principles of pressure, buoyant force, fluid flow continuity, and Bernoulli's equation. Even though, this is intended for an AP physics class, with a little modification, I can definitely use this to challenge my gifted and talented students in my freshmen Earth Science class.

Hurricane Katrina’s Fury Continues Teaching Today

Do you plan to teach about buoyant forces? Fluidity? Pressure? Bernoulli Effect? A picture of a truck sitting on the roof of a house after Hurricane Katrina stormed through a Louisiana subu... See More

Do you plan to teach about buoyant forces? Fluidity? Pressure? Bernoulli Effect? A picture of a truck sitting on the roof of a house after Hurricane Katrina stormed through a Louisiana suburb might be all it takes to engage students in a unit that will not only teach important science concepts but also help inform them about the negative human and environmental impacts of major weather events. The culminating activities (to the fluid physics unit created by a high school science teacher teaching displaced Katrina student victims) will have students role playing how to plan and organize a big city evacuation for an impending weather-related disaster; how to design and build better levee systems as members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and how to educate the masses about natural disasters as members of a team of Discovery Channel educators/reporters. The author provides access to an NSTA URL containing the rubric for the student presentations. Besides developing an appreciation and understanding of the physics behind weather-related phenomena, students learn from past disasters in order to be better prepared for the enormous social, financial, and environmental consequences that accompany Katrina-sized real-world catastrophes.