Big Bang Blogs
The online networking site, Big Bang Blogs, aims to widen participation in physics by connecting pupils who do not have a family background in science or further education with undergraduate physicists. On this site, pupils can develop mentoring relationships with undergraduate physicists and higher-year pupils. The networking opportunities presented by Big Bang Blogs facilitate physics-based conversations and open up discussions in the world of science and physics. For more information or to enrol your students on the site, please contact Dorothy Spencer dorothy.spencer@brightsideunaid.org or Helen Rafferty helen.rafferty@iop.org.
Community Website
Talk Physics (talkphysics.org) is our community and resources website. It aims to bring together those who want to develop the teaching and learning of physics. Online networking tools enable peer-to-peer support on a range of topics and provide a route by which advanced-skills teachers can support less experienced colleagues. Peer-to-peer links can be tailored to the needs of individual departments and schools. For example:
- A head of department could set up a virtual meeting room to discuss with her department the way in which the support materials present Newton’s first law.
- An advanced-skills teacher could set up a discussion room to support teachers in local schools on the best ways to teach energy.
- A large group of teachers could discuss how they use videos as lesson starters
- A Physics Network co-ordinator could seed peer-to-peer links. For example, the Physics Network co-ordinator might set up a link between a biology teacher in a school with physicists and a known physics advanced-skills teacher in a local specialist science college, providing an opportunity for personalised support.
- A group of technicians could discuss how to use and develop apparatus based on our workshops.
Talk Physics is the home of our SPT resources. It also supports all teachers of physics, but particularly those in their early years and non-specialists, in developing their subject knowledge and pedagogy. The resources can be used in science departments as a professional development tool. Each module provides a coherent, comprehensive and engaging physics narrative on a topic, planning tools and resources for use in lessons. The following KS3 modules are currently available:
- Earth in space
- Light and sound
- Electricity and magnetism
- Forces
- Energy
A range of modules are currently being created to support the teaching and learning of KS4 topics.