Storytelling and Sensemaking Physics from Newspapers

Abstract

Surprisingly, newspapers contain wide-ranging physics topics available for narrative-style teaching in the classroom. Topics of newspaper articles we have covered over the years include physicists (obituaries of Hans Bethe, etc.), art or music that involve physics (color and standing waves), forensics (auto accidents and art forgeries), archeology (dating and satellite imaging), human folly (accidents), public policy (nuclear weapons, tasers, and earthquake prediction), and random events (statistics).