Three former colleagues and I recently had our pedagogical paper published by The Physics Teacher where it was named “Editor’s Pick” for December 2025. The paper, entitled “A Hands-On Activity for Introducing Gauss’s Law,” discusses a fun and easy-to-implement method for motivating the Gauss’s law approach in an introductory electrostatic setting.
We have implemented the activity successfully at both Davidson and Lafayette Colleges, and we are excited for others to try it out! The paper should be available for free download from this link, and the supplementary material, which includes handouts and templates for use in the classroom, can be accessed within the paper, or from this figshare link.
To get started, the only materials you need are regular letter-sized paper, printable letter-sized transparency paper, and a printer. Please feel free to contact me if you want to discuss implementation, or have other questions.
