Abstract. Classroom activities that include the process of model building, in which students build simplified physical representations of a system, have the potential to help students make meaningful connections between physics and the real world. We describe a lesson designed with this intent for an introductory college classroom that engages students in the building of models, and illustrate the implementation of this lesson by examining student work.

Print publication: Issue 6 (November 2009)
Received 17 July 2009