physics and biology sites

QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS

Do you know of any sites like Chemguide covering physics and biology?

(For useful or interesting links apart from physics and biology sites, see Chemguide's links page.)

Important: Sites change or disappear. If you find a link which doesn't work, please contact me via the address on the about this site page.

Physics

The Physics Classroom	This excellent site was written for American High School Students by Tom Hendersen. The section which I read (on colour theory) was the best and most easily understandable I have come across anywhere, and a quick look at other sections shows the same friendly style, care, and attention to detail. This site is still developing, so you may not find everything you want at the moment - but it is definitely worth keeping your eye on.
HyperPhysics	A massive (and well-regarded) source of physics information, but possibly not for the faint-hearted. I suspect you would need to be reasonably confident about physics in order to get the best from it. Try it and see whether you find it useful.
schoolphysics.co.uk	Recommended to me by a student from Singapore.

Biology

Sumanas Inc	An excellent resource for (mainly) biology animations. This link will take you directly to their Animations Gallery, but have a look at Science in Focus as well.
More biology animations	A source of extremely good quality biology animations, highly recommended to me.
physicsandmathstutor.com	This isn't just for physics and maths! This link will take you to a large source of revision notes and questions on A level biology topics.
BiologyGuide.net	Written for UK AQA A level Biology and Human Biology, this is a set of revision notes plus the ability to comment and ask questions. Non-AQA students could usefully have a look as well.
Online Biology Book	Written for first year college students in the US, but A level (or equivalent) students might find something useful. Not being a biologist, I have no way of knowing!
Lecturio	Part of a site offering material for medical students. This will take you to free material in a magazine format. I have no way of knowing whether any of this might be relevant to my target audience of 16 - 18 year olds. If you do find it useful, could you let me know.
More animations	Mainly biology, but some chemistry and physics as well.
Skin biology and structure	A large source of links to sites covering a wide range of ability, and giving you huge amounts of information about skin biology.
Major systems in the human body	A site with a series of links to pdf files on the major systems in the human body. You will have to search through it to find the right level for your needs. Some of it is specifically for teachers, and there is material covering a wide age range.
Another view of major systems in the human body	This site was recommended to me by someone who had also found the one above useful. One of the best ways of learning stuff is to read about it from a variety of different sources - it helps things to stick in your memory without too much effort.
Yet another view of major systems in the human body	This time from Regis College.

Otherwise, there are a quite a lot of sites out there covering physics and biology at this level, but my impression of them is that they would be good for revision, but not so good if you were struggling to understand something in the first place. If you want to find what is available a Google search on "a level" physics or "a level" biology should throw up a good selection.

If you are doing some other exam - IB, for example, or Scottish Highers - you could try searching for these in a similar way, but it would still be worth looking for A level sites (and vice versa for A level students).

Physics, especially, is probably a difficult subject to explain simply on the web, because so much of it is mathematical. Calculations are very hard to do well on the web.

Personally, as soon as some maths appears in a chemistry web site, I switch off - and that's despite my having written a chemistry calculations book. There are too many distractions. It is too easy to feel that the calculations are boring, and "I'll just see if I've got any e-mails." or "I wonder if anyone else is on-line for a quick chat." - or whatever else you do with your computer to avoid doing anything useful! (In fact, as I was writing this, my mail program showed an incoming e-mail and so I broke off to see whether it was anything interesting. It wasn't. It was just flybe.com offering some cheap flights which I don't need at the moment - but I read it anyway!)

If you are trying to learn to do calculations, you definitely need a distraction-free environment. They need too much concentration.

If you do come across a good physics or biology site which helped you to understand physics or biology topics rather than just revising them, please let me know via the address at the bottom of the about this site page, and I will add some links here on this page. But please, no more "Major systems of the human body" sites!

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