Animations for Introductory Physics and Astronomy

The Animations for Introductory Physics and Astronomy project at Penn State Schuylkill was initiated to help students visualize aspects of 3-dimensional situations where traditional static drawings were seen as inadequate. The animations have been used to portray a wide variety of dynamical systems and processes for physics and astronomy topics typically presented in the advanced high school through introductory college level. Additional applications of the animation technology will be presented, including using more extensive animations for semester mini-themes and ``What's wrong'' tasks using artificial video for video analysis. In addition, dissemination of the animations through the project web server at http://phys23p.sl.psu.edu/phys\textunderscore anim/Phys\textunderscore anim.htm and through the project YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/mrg3 will be discussed.