In previous years, my students have always struggled to really understand measurement uncertainty. Due to my background in the computer-based measurement and automation industry, I was always troubled that I didn’t do I better job helping them understand. So, this year, I developed a set of six activities to provide a hands-on way to practice applying the definitions as well as provide a context to discuss the complexities of measurement uncertainty. Each group investigated one of the activities and then whiteboarded and presented their results with the rest of the class. Each activity had the group determine the measurement uncertainty of a measuring device and calculate the maximum percent uncertainty of their measurements. However, each activity also had a deeper purpose that led to good class discussions during whiteboarding.

1. Measure the dimensions of a block with a ruler. Deeper purpose: calculate the percent uncertainty of the volume of the block.

2. Measure the width and length of the lab table with a modified meter stick (cm precision). Deeper purpose: how does having to make multiple measurements to measure the length affect the measurement uncertainty?

3. Measure the period of a pendulum with the wall clock. Deeper purpose: how does the percent uncertainty change if 2, 5, 10, or 20 oscillations of the pendulum are measured instead?

4. Measure the temperature of ice water and hot water with a digital temperature probe. Deeper purpose: is the percent uncertainty of the cold-water measurement actually greater than that of the hot-water measurement? How does measuring the temperature differ than all the other measurements (difference vs. absolute)?

5. Measure the time for a ball to drop from the table to floor and the ceiling to floor with a digital stopwatch. Deeper purpose: Are the measurement as precise as the measurement uncertainty of the digital stopwatch (1/100 of a second)?

6. Measure the speed of the cart on the track using a photogate connected to the computer. Deeper purpose: What does the computer actually measure? What determines the measurement uncertainty? Determining the actual uncertainty of a photogate connected to a laptop running Logger Pro via a LabPro is well beyond the scope of this course (although, in my Advanced Physics course, we figure it out). Still, students realizing that computer-based measurements don’t have infinite precision is an important lesson.

The class discussions that occurred while whiteboarding were fantastic and this year’s students have a much greater appreciation of measurement uncertainty than those of previous years.