With parental leave fast-approaching and the decision made to stick with physics IAs being among the first at UWC Red Cross Nordic (March and April of DP1), I had four key priorities for my students:

1. Stick to physics 'on the course' or physics that has an easily accessible equation/framework
2. Select a research question with one independent variable and one dependent variable (both numeric)
3. Conduct experiments with at least five different values of the independent variable (ideally more) and with repeats if required
4. Beginning writing in the Google Classroom templates

I believed that the first of these was essential because of handing over to a new (experienced) colleague halfway through. Had I allowed the students to work on slightly more weird or wonderful ideas, it might have landed them and my colleague in a “start again” position after the first draft.

The second of these is pretty standard for all investigations, so this wasn't so tricky to reinforce once I'd shown students the IB's exemplars.

I provide about 8 hours of class time for the full process of introducing the IA to generating ideas to conducting the experiments to writing the first draft. Of course, many students exceed this but, nonetheless, I suggest that lab work should only need about 2 hours once the control variables are decided. I see this as part of my ‘duty’ as the teacher - to support early focusing and doable practical work rather than thinking it's somehow kind to allow the student to work 10+ hours while getting nowhere.

Finally, as IB Coordinator at my school, I'm aware of the privilege of being a physics teacher when it comes to academic honesty. It's easy! We discuss initial ideas with our students and physically watch our students as they collect some (or all) of their data. I also have a Google Classroom template in which I share the criteria as broken down on this site so I can watch the students writing in real time.

This is a summary of where my students got to by the halfway stage:

1. Keen to use the thermal imaging camera as a measuring instrument for temperature. Still deciding what to vary and what to measure using the instrument. Likely to investigate how the emissivity of different metals affects cooling rates.
2. How does 'length over area' affect resistance for conducting paper? From this, use the gradient to find resistivity (and whether it is constant!).
3. Modelled radioactive decay with Skittles candy - number of Skittles remaining vs number of throws. Is able to find out whether the half-life is approximately equal to '1' using the decay constant.
4. How does the angle of a ramp affect the average speed of a sliding object (a brass mass)? Three results collected already. I recommend at least seven. He should do repeats because reaction time is high compared with the measurement times.
5. Looking at conductivity. Keeping it simple and effective: temperature gradient along a metal rod.
6. Looking at different frequencies of tuning forks and the wavelength measured by an air column above water (first harmonic for standing waves)
7. Investigating either force vs extension OR stress vs strain for candy 'laces' both within and beyond the elastic limit.
8. Is interested in baseball - spin efficiency and lift force. Has access to YouTube videos in which there are variations. The challenge will be finding two variables that are easily connected to IBDP Physics and which have a known relationship.
9. Has done twice as much as needed in her experiment on how spring constant affects time period for a mass-spring system (because she has done it in both air and water). I suggest she makes the water version her focus but with the air data included as a 'bonus'.
10. How does surface area of a sponge affect the mass of water absorbed? It's not easy to change surface area without changing volume, but she's on the case!
11. Changing concentration of salt in water as a mechanism to change density of liquid. She is dropping objects and measuring terminal speed - Stokes' law.
12. How does the temperature increase of a marshmallow vary with its height above a hot plate? (Interested in whether there might be an inverse square law)
13. Simulated investigation (and possibly lab experiment) into angle of incidence (into a more dense material) and the intensity of light reflected vs refracted. Goes beyond the course... but he's found a theoretical background on which to make his question and hypothesis.
14. Is interested in gas pressure and how it affects the 'bounciness' (coefficient of restitution) of a bicycle wheel.
15. Exploding carts with different masses to see how mass affects time taken for them to move apart a fixed distance. Using video analysis to find the time.

What do you think? Too simple? All being well, I'll find out in January!