Interactive Physics Laboratory 
Welcome to the website of the Interactive Physics Laboratory (IPL, the Czech abbreviation IFL), which is managed by the Department of Physics Education, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague.
The IPL is a place where we enable high school students to grasp physics with their own hands. We do not offer a show, we prepare conditions for students’ own experimenting in physics.
About the project
The birth of the laboratory
The idea to establish a laboratory intended primarily for high school students at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics was inspired by the House of Science in Stockholm, which – unlike IPL – focuses on not only physics experiments, but experimenting in science generally. With the support of the Faculty, the laboratory was opened in December 2008.
Our goals
The goal of the IPL is to provide high school students (resp. their teachers) a space for conducting physics experiments which could be hardly carried out in the classroom because of their time or equipment demands. Students play a major role – they conduct all the experiments with their own hands, prepare measurements, record and evaluate data and at the end briefly present their results to their classmates. For the whole time in the laboratory, students can consult their steps with lecturers, whose role is however only supportive – students are led to maximal autonomy. We believe this way we can help students to significantly deepen their physics insight as well as manual skills.
Organizational and technical information
Basic information for teachers intending to visit IPL
Nowadays, the IPL offers nine experimental sets. One visit = one experimental set.
You choose the day and the time of your visit from the offered options. You can also choose the experimental set, if it is not fixed for your date.
The visit in the laboratory lasts 120 minutes.
The maximal size of one group is 16 students + their teacher(s).
The visit of the laboratory is free of charge.
What does the typical visit of the IPL look like?
Every experimental set consists of a few (four to six) experimental units. After they enter the laboratory, students are divided into four work groups.
Every unit has its own work sheet which is given to the students, who record their results into it. Work sheets are available for download in the section Experimental sets (only in Czech
).During experimenting, two lecturers are available for students. The lecturers are Ph.D. students or younger employees of the Department of Physics Education, or even students of the Department, i.e. future teachers of mathematics and physics.
At the end of the IPL visit, every work group describes one of the experimental units in a short (several minutes) presentation including major findings and results. The description should be intelligible also for groups which have not gone through the unit which is described. (For time reasons, in most cases students do not go through all the units of the experimental set.)
How to reach the IPL?
The IPL is situated in the campus of Faculty of Mathematics and Physics in Praha-Trója (street V Holešovičkách 2), the building of Heavy Technology Laboratories, 2nd floor, door L261.
Transportation to the campus is from the subway station Nádraží Holešovice (line "C") with bus no. 201 to the stop Kuchyňka or with bus no. 112 to the stop Pelc Tyrolka. The walk from both these stops to the IPL is shown in the picture below.
Experimental sets
The table below shows offered experimental sets and their units. Working sheets for students are available only in Czech .
| Electrostatics | Electric field around a charged spherical conductor |
|---|---|
| Experiments with simple plate capacitors | |
| Playing with capacitors | |
| Electrostatics with straws | |
| How to illustrate electric field? | |
| Construction of an electric charge indicator | |
| Motions under gravity | Free fall |
| Horizontal launch (going down a slide) | |
| Ballistic launch (video analysis) | |
| Ballistic launch (shooting a cannon) | |
| Magnetic field of solenoids | See special website (only in Czech ) |
| Optics | Law of reflection and refraction of light |
| Total internal reflection | |
| Interference and diffraction of light | |
| Polarization of light | |
| Oscillations and rigid body mechanics | Moment of inertia |
| Oscillations on a spring | |
| Resonance frequency and damped oscillations (Pohl's pendulum) | |
| Torsional oscillation | |
| Quantum effects in microworld | Franck–Hertz experiment |
| Diffraction of X-rays | |
| Photoelectric effect (applet) | |
| Photoelectric effect | |
| Determination of Planck’s constant using LEDs | |
| Rotating frames of reference | Centripetal force |
| Rotating marbles | |
| Liquid in a rotating vessel | |
| Vortices | |
| Thermodynamics I – quantitative approach | Determining the specific heat capacity of water |
| Comparing the specific heat capacities of water and cooking oil | |
| Calorimetry | |
| Verifying the Boyle-Mariotte law | |
| Verifying the Charles's law | |
| Thermodynamics II – qualitative approach | Heat conduction |
| Thermography | |
| Melting of crystalline substances | |
| Evaporation, condensation and boiling | |
| How to influence the speed of evaporation |
Our team, contact
Project supervisor:
Lecturers:
Contact
E-mail: interaktivni.fyzikalni.laborator@gmail.com
Adress: Interactive Physics Laboratory, Department of Physics Education, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, V Holešovičkách 2, 180 00 Praha 8-Trója.
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