ANNOUNCING .. a brand new compact disc of music dealing with scientific theories, history, logic, and pure fun! With downloadable assignments and activities for teachers, parents, and students grades 5 through college-level.

Since 1986, members of the Activity Based Physics Group have been experimenting with more effective and interesting ways to teach by replacing formal lectures with interactive demonstrations and laboratory-based activities. The Group, consisting of several high school and college teachers, has been developing curricular materials and computer tools which will help students to learn by doing.

In Workshop Physics, one of our activity-based programs, we have found songs to be a delightful and entertaining way for students to test their understanding of new ideas in a rigorous way. We were excited when the National Science Foundation gave us a small grant to produce a more extended collection of songs and related assignments. We are looking forward to using this new collection in our classes, and we hope that you will find them useful and fun also.

PHYSICS PHOLK SONGS and other Scienterrific Ditties

Retail price: $15.00 .. see Online Order Form
For additional information contact Physics Pholk Songs.

Produced by: David & Ginger Hildebrand, whose previous three recordings have sold over 25,000 copies in the US and abroad. For information on David and Ginger, visit their Web site at: http://www.colonialmusic.org/.

THE SONGS
  1. The Bricklayer's Song (P. Cooksey): You've probably heard a version of this song or it's story equivalent--poor Paddy's chore is to lower bricks from the 14th floor. He decides to use a pulley, only the bricks are heavier than he is. Physics pandemonium and a rather bruising tale ensue.
  2. Applesauce (J. Harmon): A humorous slant on why it's called Gravity, and other silly stuff.
  3. Pool Table Physics Lab Rap (R. Morse): Vectors, angles, potenial and kinetic energy, momentum, you name it. All on a fast-paced slate.
  4. Galaxy Song (E. Idle and J. DuPrez): From the Monty Python movie, "The Meaning of Life", a humble tongue-in-cheek reflection on our small place in the universe.
  5. Motion Detector Rag (D. Hildebrand): This song deals with a dance that, with the use of a motion detector, becomes a graph, and vice versa.
  6. Newton's Laws (B. Franklin/G. Hildebrand): A wonderful compendium of Newton's easier and more difficult concepts, with a human slant.
  7. I'm My Own Grandpaw (D. Latham, M. Jaffe): If you were listening to the radio in the '40's, you probably remember Ernie Tubbs singing this. A real test of the listener's logic skills, a strange marriage creates the situation by which the singer becomes his own grandfather. It works...go figure...please!
  1. Particles...Quant'em (J. Harmon): A round in the folk tradition, but post- modern in its content.
  2. Electricity and History (G. Hildebrand): Using electric guitars, of course, we stretch the meaning of "Pholk" here. A short history of electricity and its storage and transfer. Edison, Ampere, Oerstead, Tesla--they're all here.
  3. How Colors Delight (J. Franklin/G. Hildebrand): The primary colors of light? Red, blue, and green, of course!
  4. Simple Harmonic Oscillator Rap (S. Lewicki, D. Politzer, D. Priest): Less pholky still, this one is a little scientifically advanced for the early teen crowd. Perfect for a freshman or sophomore college-level class.
  5. To Sir Isaac (D. Hildebrand): A ballad of Newton's life, newly composed for this CD.
  6. The Elements (T. Lehrer): The original Tom Lehrer classic recording. He plays, he sings, he's goofy. Wildly popular in the '60s and '70's, there are many chemistry students today who have never heard this song--they really must, there is nothing like it.
  7. First and Second Law (Flanders and Swann): Another classic, this from a British duo of decades past. A great tool for teaching the laws of thermodynamics, and wonderful fun, too.

Each song has an associated lesson .. see http://physics.dickinson.edu.