Gunjan Raizada

DR. GUNJAN RAIZADA fell in love with physics in a science fair conducted by middle schoolers when she was ten years old. A seed of physics was sown into her that day. After that, in Grade 12 (after six years) she was taught physics by a wonderful teacher, and then she clearly knew she wanted to pursue physics. She continued to earn scholarships to complete her PhD in physics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India. She realized during her PhD that physics is everywhere, in the...See more

DR. GUNJAN RAIZADA fell in love with physics in a science fair conducted by middle schoolers when she was ten years old. A seed of physics was sown into her that day. After that, in Grade 12 (after six years) she was taught physics by a wonderful teacher, and then she clearly knew she wanted to pursue physics. She continued to earn scholarships to complete her PhD in physics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India. She realized during her PhD that physics is everywhere, in the playground and inside homes. Math and equations only complicate the learning of physics. When she was teaching at San Jose State University in the US, she realized the need of teaching physics to elementary graders without math or equations.She followed her children in their schools and did workshops teaching physics concepts with basketball rolling/ shooting and water fountains. Additionally, she regularly wrote about those workshops on a blog after every workshop. She took notes on what worked with Grades 4 to 6 students and what did not. This book is the essence of that blog. It has been written with a lot of passion to educate students. The goal is that every student who reads this book begins observing, thereby tapping into the inherent Newton within themselves. She describes her passion as, "Enthusiastic to sow the seed of loving physics in all students (ages 9 to 20) all over the world." She speaks from her firsthand teaching experience that the simple experiential experiments that work smoothly with age 9 also work very well with college students. And once those students have their fundamentals nailed (in their bodies) using Joyful Physics series as an introductory book, it becomes easy to add the layer of Equations (from their curriculum textbook, whenever they encounter Equations). Guess what? Using Joyful Physics series, physics will become joyful to all students in all school grades and college levels all over the world. See less