None 2024

Students, pretending they are point charges, move around the room acting out various prompts from the instructor regarding charge densities, including linear \(\lambda\), surface \(\sigma\), and volume \(\rho\) charge densities, both uniform and non-uniform. The instructor demonstrates what it means to measure these quantities. In a remote setting, we have students manipulate 10 coins to model the prompts in this activity and we demonstrate the answers with coins under a doc cam.

What students learn

• Conceptual/geometric understanding of linear, surface and volume densities;
• The existence of mass, charge, and number densities;
• The distinction between uniform and non-uniform densities;
• The relationship between discrete densities, represented by bodies, and continuous densities represented by functions such as \(\lambda(x)\).