Third year physics project (teaching)

[Thorp- Downes]

Hi all,
I am currently a second year physics student who has started thinking about his third year project, I am hoping to do teaching upon completion of my degree and have been advised to link my final year long project to teaching in some way.
The issue I am having isn't thinking of a project it is thinking of a project that can last a full academic year and has some decent mid-high level physics behind it and some how relates to teaching. If anybody can give me some advice I would be very grateful.
Thanks in advance
Sam

 

[Stephen Tashi]

I suggest a project involving physics laboratory equipment - for labs at whatever level of physics you intend to teach. The problem of effective labs is complicated. They must be simple enough to complete in a few hours, they must illustrate concepts clearly, they must be safe, they must be relatively cheap, the equipment must be somewhat idiot-proof. A conceptually simple project would be writing a paper comparing a large number of commerical laboratory devices designed for the same type of experiments. A more complicated project could be to develop equipment for laboratory experiment. A social science type of project would be to study how students do labs.