Physics Teacher Resources

Find out how this extreme sport is governed by the principles of momentum, gravity, friction, and centripetal force.

Free access to lesson plans, worksheets, printables and more.

Free access to lesson plans, worksheets, printables and more.

The creators of this site yearn to rid you of your fear of physics, and have created a “friendly, non-technical place for you to come and play with the laws of physics for a while.” Best clicks are the animations and videos (such as “How Shaking Motion Can Destroy Structures” and “Hanging Bicycle Wheel Spinning” ) listed on the front page. The Homework Help section is reserved for paying members, but the rest of the site is free access.

The Physics Classroom is an illustrated, animated tutorial for high-school physics students written by high-school physics teacher Tom Henderson. The site is divided into eleven chapters (such as Newton’s Laws, Waves, and 1-D Kinematics) each containing lessons, quizzes, and multimedia demonstrations. If you want to jump directly to the animations, they are listed separately in the Multimedia Physics Studio menu

Physics.org is a specialized physics search engine, and a multimedia playground showing physics in everyday items. To use the search engine, enter your age, your level of physics background, and an natural language query such as “Why is the sky blue?” If you register (it’s free) Physics.org will remember your settings. Don’t leave without visiting Physics Life (animations of physics in common household items ) or Physics Evolution (an interactive map showing the history of related physics ideas.)

Free access to lesson plans, worksheets, printables and more.

Interactive tour of the atom with background information.

Primarily about astronomy, but it also has spin-offs on flight

Huge collection of lesson plans which deals with every area of physics

Up to date physics information, lessons, particle physics

Includes many physics links and information

Math and Physics with animated examples to explain concepts. Grades 4th – 12th.

The comprehensive Galileo Project from Rice University is an excellent resource for school projects. It includes a biography, a time line, and a gallery of portraits. If you are ready to move beyond the basics, try Science (articles about the scientists and scientific instruments of Galileo’s time) and Christianity (an introduction to the inquisition and important church figures.) For links to lesson plans, look in the Library.

The Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence provides a rather quirky online exhibit that includes the middle finger of Galileo’s right hand. I’m not kidding. “This item exemplifies the celebration of Galileo as a hero and martyr of science. The finger was detached from the body by Anton Francesco Gori on March 12, 1737, when Galileo’s remains were moved from the original grave to the monumental tomb built on the initiative of Vincenzo Viviani.”

This PBS site is my Galileo pick of the day because it’s got both style and substance. Visit for the great articles (such as the biography and a exploration of Galileo’s telescope) but stay for the fun interactives, which include animated recreations of several of Galileo’s most famous experiments. “A young Galileo is perched atop the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He is in the middle of his famous experiment the one in which he shows, by dropping cannonballs of different weights, that all objects fall at the same rate. It’s the kind of story that’s easy to imagine, easy to remember, but whether he ever performed the experiment at the tower is debatable.”

NASA traces our exploration of the solar system back to Galileo’s use of the telescope. “In 1610, Galileo Galilei used a new optical instrument — known today as a telescope — to look at the night sky. He discovered several points of light close to the planet Jupiter.” Although there are only a few pages here on Galileo, they are well-written and perfect for middle schoolers. Follow the links at the bottom of the article to learn about modern-day space missions.