OER Resources - Physics & Astronomy

Several open textbooks on a variety of physics topics.

Explore courses, textbooks, homework exercises and ancillary materials. Topics include: Optics TextMaps, Quantum Mechanics, and Relativity.

Lumen Learning provides a textbook on Physics with various chapters such as Two-Dimensional Kinematics, Magnetism, and Geometric Optics.

MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.

This is a great resource that provides textbooks on various topics on astronomy, astrophysics, and space exploration.

OER Commons provides a curated collection of physics and astronomy resources and textbooks.

Published by Rice University's OpenStax, these free College Physics textbooks can be read online, in PDF, or on an iPad.

Every course on Coursera is taught by top instructors from the world’s best universities and educational institutions. Courses include recorded video lectures, auto-graded and peer-reviewed assignments, and community discussion forums.

In this series on YouTube Dr. Shini Somara introduces us to the ideas of motion in a straight line. She talks about displacement, acceleration, time, velocity, and the definition of acceleration. Also, how does a physicist discuss speed as opposed to a police officer? And did you deserve that ticket? You can figure it all out with the help of Physics!

Find out more about particle physics and understanding the universe.

An excellent suite of tutorial videos explaining a variety of Physics concepts. Great if in class use or for students trying to master the concepts.

Fully online courses with video lectures, exercises, quizzes and online readings in things like Relativity, Classical Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, etc. that can be freely reused by instructors and reviewed by students.

Find online courses in quantum mechanics and magnetism the likes of MIT and Rice University or get an introduction to the violent universe from Australian National University.

Physics Girl is a channel created by Dianna Cowern about physics, astronomy and science-related topics. The show features fun DIY demos, unusual and cutting-edge research, space, and expert interviews!

Every course on Coursera is taught by top instructors from the world’s best universities and educational institutions. Courses include recorded video lectures, auto-graded and peer-reviewed assignments, and community discussion forums.

In this series Astronomer Phil Plait begins with answering a question: "What is astronomy?" and then dives into further courses on astronomy such as eclipses, exoplanets, dark matter, and gamma-ray bursts.

Future learn provides three free courses titled "In the Night Sky: Orion", "The Discovery of the Higgs Boson", and "How to Survive on Mars: the Science Behind the Human Exploration of Mars."

Video course materials with a focus on cosmology.

Fully online courses with video lectures, exercises, quizzes and online readings that can be freely reused by instructors in planetary science, solar system dynamics, and observational astronomy.

The Astronomy Image Explorer (AIE) is a tool for researchers working in the fields of Astronomy and Astrophysics to gain access to images published in peer-reviewed journals. AIE is populated with hundreds of thousands of images published in the journals of the American Astronomical Society.

Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more

Share lab manuals with other physics and astronomy teachers. (Sign up required.)

Fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena from the PhET™ project at the University of Colorado.

Site dedicated to Physics teaching materials like simulations, models, and digital content and tools for all kinds of physics.

Build the elements of the periodic table by adding and subtracting the atomic building blocks of neutrons, protons and electrons with the swipe of your finger. An exciting, energetic and informative app.
Free (first half of the periodic table); Cost (second half) Apple

Pocket Physics is an easy-to-use, free app that covers a wide range of physical formulas with descriptions and images. Good reference tool for beginning and advanced Physics students.
Free Android

Hold the Moon in your hands. Moon Globe turns your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad into a precision instrument for viewing Earth's Moon. Satellite imagery and topographic laser altimeter data are combined to render the Moon with realistic lighting in realtime 3D.
Free Apple

Take a tour of the mysterious Red Planet. This virtual globe combines a high-resolution satellite map with laser altimeter data and advanced topographic lighting to present the planet Mars as it appears from above. An Introduction and Guided Tour present some of Mars' most intriguing features.
Free Apple

This app gives you in-depth information on all the planets. Locate planets in 2D or 3D mode and select different visibilities of the sky, such as X-ray, Infrared, Microwave and Radio. There is also a Globe function that lets you view a rotating 3D image of all the planets and the moon.
Free Apple