Monday, May 13, 2013

Day One Hundred Overview

Day One Hundred Overview

- we began class by reviewing the first two Newton's Laws
     - Law #1 - objects in motion stay in motion and objects at rest stay at rest
     - Law #2 - force, mass, and acceleration are all related
- we then did some practice calculation work using the F = ma formula
     - the students worked in groups and were given approximately 15 minutes to complete a list of problems that asked the students to solve for mass, acceleration, and force
          - after the students were done working we went over the answers as a class

F = ma worksheet

- we then went over Newton's Third Law
     - objects that exert a force on something have an equal and opposite force exerted on them
     - with every action there is an equal and opposite reaction



Homework
- Which Law Is It? worksheet

Which Law is it? worksheet

Science News

Day Ninety Nine Overview

Day Ninety Nine Overview

- we began class by discussing our homework
     - I asked the students if anybody would like to share what they wrote for their paragraph on Newton's First Law
     - one of the best examples that I heard was a student that used an air hockey table as an example of Newton's First Law
          - if the table was infinitely large, one would assume that the puck would move for quite a long time if it was motion ... almost forever
          - the only reason that the puck would come to a stop would be that it was acted upon by an outside force
          - that force could be friction, a paddle, the air hockey goal ... a number of things
- after discussing our homework paragraph we began to take notes through Newton's Second Law
     - Newton's Second Law states that force, mass, and acceleration are all related to one another
          - F = ma
          - I demonstrated to the students how if a tennis ball with a certain mass can have more force if you increase it's acceleration
     - we watched a couple video clips to help cement the concept



- after watching the clips we went through some examples of Newton's First Law 
     - dominoes
     - pulling out a table cloth
     - barbie car crash


Homework
- finish the online portion of the Newton's First Law station worksheet

Science News

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Day Ninety Eight Overview

Day Ninety Eight Overview

- we began class by answering three questions for a warm up
     1.  What part of your egg drop design worked well?  explain
     2.  What part of your egg drop design worked poorly?  explain
     3.  Suggest a way to improve your design if you were to perform this activity again.  Be specific
- after the warm up we watched a Bill Nye movie about gravity
     - the clip does a great job explaining to the students that all matter experiences gravity
     - the clip also shows footage from the Apollo 15 mission where an astronaut drops a hammer and a feather and they fall at the same rate, proving that everything accelerates due to gravity at the same rate



- this is a short video clip of one part of the video I showed the students
- after Bill Nye we began discussion of Newton's first law of motion
     - Newton's first law of motion states that an object in motion will stay in motion and an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force
- I used a tennis ball to demonstrate to the students some key parts of Newton's first law 
- after the in class demonstration the students watched two short video clips to reinforce the first law




Homework
- write a paragraph of at least 4 sentences explaining a real world example of Newtons First Law

Science News



Day Ninety Seven Overview

Day Ninety Seven Overview

- on this day in class the students were given the first ten minutes to finalize their egg drop devices
- after finalizing their egg drop designs the students were given their eggs
- the class then went outside to test their egg drop designs
     - only one egg out of 18 drops broke!
- after doing our egg drop tests we came back inside and worked on our lab packets in groups
     - the vast majority of the students were able to finish their labs by the end of the period!
          - students were promised that if they finished their lab ahead of time they would be given feedback on possible incorrect questions

Homework
- finish the egg drop lab in one week

Science News
Your Tounge, Inside Out

Friday, May 3, 2013

Adjustment to Test Scores

After some consideration I threw out one question on the test.  To adjust for that question I gave everyone's test score one extra point on the raw score, or two percentage points.

Mr. H

Day Ninety Six Overview

Day Ninety Six Overview

- today the students were tasked with the challenge of building a contraption that will make it so a raw egg will not break if dropped from the top of the football bleachers
- students were broken up into groups of three and given a limited set of materials
     - students had been asked the class prior to bring in any extra materials if they would like
     - if the students did not bring anything else in they could only use what they were given
- students were told to first develop a sketch of what they were going to build and were then given the period to build their contraption
- we will test them with actual eggs next class!

Amazing Egg Drop Challenge









Homework
- make up any late work

Science News

Day Ninety Five Overview

Day Ninety Five Overview

- to begin class I checked/went over the half page of questions that went along with the gravity news article
     - without gravity we would float away from the earth
     - gravity is a function of mass and distance
     - another name for the force of gravity pulling on an object is weight
     - Einstein thought gravity was a ripple in space time
     - everything falls at the same rate because it has the same pull from gravity
- we then did a 15 minute binder clean out
     - I asked the students to keep any tests/quizzes, note packets, review sheets, and anything to do with the current unit
- we then got into taking some more notes about forces in motion
     - the acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 m/s/s for any object
          - that means that EVERYTHING with matter should fall towards earth at the same rate, and almost everything does
          - feathers and paper don't ... but why?
     - air resistance!
     - things are slowed down by air resistance so we cannot see the true effect of gravity
     - when air resistance catches up to gravity an object reaches its terminal velocity
- we then discussed how something orbits along with projectile motion
     - for things to move in a curved path there is an average of two forces
          - things can fall while also moving horizontally
- to test out the theory of projectile motion I had the students watch a clip from Mythbusters

Homework
- bring in extra materials from home to use during our amazing egg drop challenge

Science News
Survival of the Fittest, Inside a Shark's Womb