Research

As the national university, we champion and support innovative research that addresses the country’s most pressing challenges.

03 Nov 2023

UP Cebu

Public lecture to tackle challenges to democracy and politics in a post-truth era

The University of the Philippines Cebu Central Visayas Studies and College of Social Sciences in cooperation with the Critical Policy...

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27 Oct 2023

UP Diliman

First and most extensive study in the Philippines shows diagnostic accuracy of a multivariate index assay alone and in combination with ovarian imaging for ovarian cancer prediction

This study determined the utility of ovarian imaging and a second-generation multivariate index assay in predicting  the risk of ovarian...

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23 Oct 2023

UP Baguio

Covid-19 caused more psychological distress on women and young people than older persons

The results of this study represent 14,133 participants across 6 continents, with data from 19 nations. The most consistent finding...

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19 Oct 2023

UP Diliman, UP System

Children as young as two months are exposed to digital media for an average of two hours every day

The dramatic increase in the touchscreen exposure of very young children has raised issues regarding the potentials and perils that...

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11 Oct 2023

UP

Caves require greater management as important, but seldom studied, nonrenewable resources

Caves are significant nonrenewable resources that provide a variety of ecosystem services with varying sensitivities to disturbance. In the Philippines,...

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10 Oct 2023

UP Los Baños, UP Open University

Small islands in Northern Samar are linked by political, economic and social reasons

The Philippines as an archipelago is made up of many islands. Most of these islands are characterized as small, isolated,...

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06 Oct 2023

UP Los Baños

Online learning had adverse effects on the well-being and mental health of STEM students

This research adds to the growing body of literature pertaining to the extent and consequences of fully online
learning to Science,...

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05 Oct 2023

UP Manila

Teachers are still hesitant to talk about sex education due to cultural and religious factors

Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) enables children and young people to learn about the cognitive, emotional, physical, and social characteristics of...

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02 Oct 2023

UP Manila

Smart-city projects will not “reduce inequality, hold policymakers accountable or address the root causes of Manila’s problems”

The Philippines is said to fall behind when it comes to adopting digital technologies and urged to catch up with...

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14 Sep 2023

UP Diliman

The location and number of language areas in the brain differ among multilingual brain tumor patients

The location of the speech area in the brain may be different or located in several sites in patients who...

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05 Sep 2023

UP Los Baños

Agent-based model reveals a sustainable method of forest tree harvesting

The Philippines requires 6 million cubic meters of wood annually, based on its 2006–2014 average wood consumption. However, due to...

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29 Aug 2023

UP Diliman

Adjusting the rice cropping calendar can improve the production and income of rice farmers

The study assessed the impact of an adjusted cropping calendar on the welfare of rice farming households in the  Mekong...

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Research

The COVID-19 pandemic posed a challenge for laboratory classes to keep students engaged amidst the limitations of a fully remote set-up. While providing students with open-access learning tools and data to analyze were shown to enhance science skills (i.e. analysis, measuring, and predicting), these alternatives still lacked the active involvement that hands-on activities provide as well as the social involvement, learning, and novelty that greatly stimulates the interest and motivation of students in science classrooms. We present a simple hands-on physics experiment rich in learning opportunities that students can still do at home and require minimal intervention from the teacher. Providing students with a tangible and inexpensive experiment will not only give them a change of pace but also encouraged them to be actively involved in applying the concepts they learned in class.

We introduce a simple hands-on physics experiment that is cheap to carry out and rich in physics concepts from which students can learn how to construct circuits (electronics), calibrate a non-linear device (instrumentation) and apply the concepts of polarization (optics). In this experiment, students are tasked to calibrate the non-linear response of a light dependent resistor (LDR) to a laser diode using Malus’ law. An LDR is a photo-conductive device whose resistance depends on the amount of incident light that shines upon the light-sensitive semi-conductive material present on the LDR’s surface. Experiments that require a cheap method to easily detect the absence or abundance of light favor the use of LDRs in their optical systems.

In a voltage-divider network between the LDR and a variable resistor, the voltage drop across the second resistor can be measured to characterize the resistance response of the LDR to light. Here, students will integrate Malus’ Law both into Ohm’s Law and the power law model of the LDR to estimate the resistance of the LDR to varying intensities of light. To manipulate the intensity of incoming light towards the LDR, the students will insert a cross polarizer between the LDR and the laser diode. This method is then compared to direct resistance measurement. Since it requires minimal supervision from teachers, this can also be performed by high school and undergraduate students as a do-it-yourself experiment to discuss circuits and optics.

Authors: Niña Angelica Simon, Benjamin Ambrosio and Nathaniel Hermosa II (National Institute of Physics, College of Science, University of the Philippines Diliman)

Read the full paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6404/acf5b4