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Idealized Science Institute

Idealized Science Institute

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Fostering engagement in authentic scientific practice. https://linktr.ee/idealizedscienceinstitute

05/12/2026

Thank you to all of the donors, sponsors, volunteers, and Penn State Beaver employees that made the inaugural Idealized Science Institute Regional Science Conference possible. We welcomed over 200 students from 5 school districts in Southwestern Pennsylvania to present their long term original research projects. Thanks to generous financial support from local STEM alumni and corporate sponsors, we were able to award $15,000 in scholarships and $5,000 in teacher lab grants!

10/07/2025

Can You Find the Center of Mass of This Irregular Object?

09/14/2025

How Does the Sphere Size Affect the Race Rotation of a Thrust Bearing?

09/11/2025

How Do Ball Bearings Work? Part 2: Number of Rotations vs Number of Balls

In the second part of our series on ball bearings, we ask how the number of revolutions a bearing completes varies with the number of balls? This is part one of a series on how to conduct a long-term authentic research project. Here we use this long-form lesson to show how problems inevitably pop-up and are mitigated. We hope that it will inspire both teachers and students to begin their own long-terms!

09/11/2025

How Do Ball Bearings Work? Part 2: Number of Rotations vs Number of Balls

09/07/2025

Do More Balls Make Ball Bearings Spin Longer?

Photos from Idealized Science Institute 's post 05/08/2025

Friday, May 2nd was Freedom Area High School’s 9th Annual Authentic Science Conference. This year, the Idealized Science Institute awarded 7 scholarships totaling $5,250. Three awards were given to 6th grade students and 4 awards were given to high school students for their excellent long-term research projects. This would not have been possible without the generous donations from our ISI’s supporters (many of whom are FHS alumni)! If you want to help us expand our scholarship offerings in years to come, please consider making a small monthly donation at www.idealizedscience.org/donate

We had a wonderful keynote address from Ryan Kaufman, Ph.D. (FHS class of 2015) who flew in from his new job as a quantum computing scientist at Google in Santa Barbara.

There were roughly 100 student presentations across sixth grade, physics 1, 2, 3, and physical science. And, for the first time ever, a second grader presented their long-term project! Additionally, ten FHS alumni inspired students through presentations about their academic and career journeys since leaving Freedom. It was a great day, as always! We look very forward to the tenth annual conference next year!

Photos from Idealized Science Institute 's post 03/24/2025

Today marks an exciting milestone in the Idealized Science Institute’s history. Thanks to generous donations from alumni and community members, we were able to travel to Washington, DC and hold our first international pre-conference workshop at the 98th Annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching. Participants included in-service teachers, teacher educators, PhD students, and post-doctoral researchers from Canada, Lesotho, South Africa, Germany, and the United States. It was an exciting start to our week as one of two exhibitors here!

If you would like to help us continue doing great events like this, please consider donating on our website at www.idealizedscience.org.

02/02/2025

We have reached a huge milestone of 1,000 YouTube subscribers!

09/08/2024

Please comment your answer or thoughts about the quick quiz below! In this video, Dr. Wargo demonstrates how to implement a classical Newtonian Mechanics Quick Quiz. What happens when you jump up from a bathroom scale?

Use this video to learn how to implement the Quick Quiz and authentically engage your students in dialogue. Quick Quizzes (QQs) are carefully designed problems that allow teachers to easily engage their students in authentic discourse about natural phenomena. To minimize barriers to entry, we focus on systems that require minimal prep time and use mostly readily available materials. This is one video of many across the high school physics curriculum that aims to prepare teachers to engage their students authentically. QQs are one tool of many that the Idealized Science Institute recommends. The Idealized Science Institute is an educational non-profit that aims to empower educators to use modern, research-backed pedagogical methods in the classroom. For more information, please visit us at https://www.idealizedscience.org

09/04/2024

In this video, Dr. Wargo demonstrates how to implement a Newtonian Quick Quiz. What does the scale read when two 1 kg masses are on pulleys?

Use this video to learn how to implement the Quick Quiz and authentically engage your students in dialogue. Quick Quizzes (QQs) are carefully designed problems that allow teachers to easily engage their students in authentic discourse about natural phenomena. To minimize barriers to entry, we focus on systems that require minimal prep time and use mostly readily available materials. This is one video of many across the high school physics curriculum that aims to prepare teachers to engage their students authentically. QQs are one tool of many that the Idealized Science Institute recommends. The Idealized Science Institute is an educational non-profit that aims to empower educators to use modern, research-backed pedagogical methods in the classroom. For more information, please visit us at https://www.idealizedscience.org

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