I can't believe this was day 80 already--only just over 100 to go! Not much time to learn all the science we need to learn. Mrs. Middleton was nicer to me today, but Mrs. Savoca wasn't. She left me in the LGI room to clean up after the Quiz Bowl (the boys won) all by myself. I'm sure she had something very important to do ;)
Today the O section finally did the titration lab. Most students did excellent. A couple of students didn't seem willing to pay attention at the level necessary. Not a warning really, but students who don't pay attention spend their lab time doing workbooks instead of doing hands-on labs.
The L section completed lesson 6-2 on velocity and acceleration. They impressed me with how well they picked up the concept of speed and direction, as well as the three things that result in acceleration (a change in velocity over time).
Speaking of a change in velocity over time, the S section got a great look at this with the roller coaster gizmo on explorelearning.com. It allows you to graph the velocity of a roller coaster car over time, showing that if there is a slope, there is acceleration. Pretty awesome. The S and W sections both completed lesson 6-3 this afternoon, studying roller coaster physics--g forces, acceleration, and why you need more than just speed to make a ride fun. We watched a great video from the discovery channel on roller coasters that focused especially on g forces. I even learned today about negative g forces. How can they be negative? Because a force, like velocity, has direction. This is our next concept in this unit--balanced and unbalanced forces.
Sweet justice.
January 4, 2008
January 3, 2008
Day 79
Well, Mrs. Middleton has declared war on having fun in school. She stole all four of my rockets today, blamed it on students, and then prevented me from making sure that science was the most awesomest place in the world. I think she is just jealous of how much learning goes on in my classroom while we still have fun.
I found the rockets, with the help of my students in the W section. Thanks, guys.
I taught about acceleration today in the W, O, and S sections. My main goal: for students to understand that acceleration is what fun is all about, especially on thrill rides, or even in rides in the car. We started with a discussion about velocity and speed. Velocity is speed with direction. Acceleration, then, is just a change in velocity (either speed or direction). The best rides, in a roller coaster or in a car, have lots of speed and direction changes. Going fast is not as much fun as getting to that speed fast. That is what acceleration is all about. We did a little bat spin exercise, or at least I did and one volunteer. I also had a student match my movements in the room to show that motion is relative to your reference point. So, I may be moving compared to a monkey in my cabinet, but not to a student across the room who is moving the same as I am.
In the L section, we wrapped up our lab with a discussion of the titration we did yesterday. They were able to tell that the base was stronger than the acid by analyzing the graph. In general, it took 18 mL of base to neutralize 20 mL of acid. Then we talked about motion, played the hamster game, watched a short video, and calculated speed.
The S section learned about scalars and vectors. Speed is a scalar--no direction, while velocity is a vector--has direction. I introduced the concept of polar coordinates, but didn't go into much depth.
And in LGI I got challenged to a pushup match on knuckles. Somehow, I won. I distributed the force of my pushups across all my knuckles--some physics. I don't know if this helped, but a little science always helps.
Sweet justice.
I found the rockets, with the help of my students in the W section. Thanks, guys.
I taught about acceleration today in the W, O, and S sections. My main goal: for students to understand that acceleration is what fun is all about, especially on thrill rides, or even in rides in the car. We started with a discussion about velocity and speed. Velocity is speed with direction. Acceleration, then, is just a change in velocity (either speed or direction). The best rides, in a roller coaster or in a car, have lots of speed and direction changes. Going fast is not as much fun as getting to that speed fast. That is what acceleration is all about. We did a little bat spin exercise, or at least I did and one volunteer. I also had a student match my movements in the room to show that motion is relative to your reference point. So, I may be moving compared to a monkey in my cabinet, but not to a student across the room who is moving the same as I am.
In the L section, we wrapped up our lab with a discussion of the titration we did yesterday. They were able to tell that the base was stronger than the acid by analyzing the graph. In general, it took 18 mL of base to neutralize 20 mL of acid. Then we talked about motion, played the hamster game, watched a short video, and calculated speed.
The S section learned about scalars and vectors. Speed is a scalar--no direction, while velocity is a vector--has direction. I introduced the concept of polar coordinates, but didn't go into much depth.
And in LGI I got challenged to a pushup match on knuckles. Somehow, I won. I distributed the force of my pushups across all my knuckles--some physics. I don't know if this helped, but a little science always helps.
Sweet justice.
January 2, 2008
Day 78
As I started to write this entry earlier today, Mrs. Middleton stopped in to talk about "Hogan's Place" and how much she loves that show. So, I had to postpone my penmanship until now.
This is always a tough day, not just for students but for teachers. It is tough to come back after a break and get into studying and learning again. Of course, we are always learning, but sitting in a classroom is tough. So, to help things out today, as we started to talk about motion, we did a couple of fun activities in class in the O, W, and S sections. I pulled out my stomp rockets and we talked about motion, how an object will stay in the same type of motion (direction and speed) until a force changes it. This is the basic concept of inertia, and we talked about the rocket being stationary until a force was applied, and how it fell to the ground instead of staying on the same path because of gravity. The wall also stopped it when I shot it hard enough. At one point, the rocket curved through the doorway and struck Mrs. Middleton's door while she was teaching. Oops!
We also played a flash video game called "Flight of the Hamster". This allowed us to look at motion as well, talking about the forces that keep the hamster in flight. We also calculated the average speed of the hamster as it flew during different trials. In some classes I had enough time to have student challenges to find out how well the students understood motion as they got the hamster to fly as well.
I asked students how fast they had ever traveled in a car with an adult driving. You would be surprised to find that the average fastest speed was about 90 mph! Some had gone over 105, or so they claimed. It is tough to trust anecdotal data like this, isn't it?
I assigned HW 6-1a, 6-2a, and 6-3a for the evening, giving some time in class to work, but not much. All in all, an exciting day for the first day of school in 2008.
The L section did a great job with the acid/base titration lab. I figured out a couple changes to make on the worksheet that simplified the lab and helped them get through it much quicker. Tomorrow we will go over the lab and discuss the results. You can see an explanation of the lab in entries for day 76 and 77.
Sweet justice!
This is always a tough day, not just for students but for teachers. It is tough to come back after a break and get into studying and learning again. Of course, we are always learning, but sitting in a classroom is tough. So, to help things out today, as we started to talk about motion, we did a couple of fun activities in class in the O, W, and S sections. I pulled out my stomp rockets and we talked about motion, how an object will stay in the same type of motion (direction and speed) until a force changes it. This is the basic concept of inertia, and we talked about the rocket being stationary until a force was applied, and how it fell to the ground instead of staying on the same path because of gravity. The wall also stopped it when I shot it hard enough. At one point, the rocket curved through the doorway and struck Mrs. Middleton's door while she was teaching. Oops!
We also played a flash video game called "Flight of the Hamster". This allowed us to look at motion as well, talking about the forces that keep the hamster in flight. We also calculated the average speed of the hamster as it flew during different trials. In some classes I had enough time to have student challenges to find out how well the students understood motion as they got the hamster to fly as well.
I asked students how fast they had ever traveled in a car with an adult driving. You would be surprised to find that the average fastest speed was about 90 mph! Some had gone over 105, or so they claimed. It is tough to trust anecdotal data like this, isn't it?
I assigned HW 6-1a, 6-2a, and 6-3a for the evening, giving some time in class to work, but not much. All in all, an exciting day for the first day of school in 2008.
The L section did a great job with the acid/base titration lab. I figured out a couple changes to make on the worksheet that simplified the lab and helped them get through it much quicker. Tomorrow we will go over the lab and discuss the results. You can see an explanation of the lab in entries for day 76 and 77.
Sweet justice!
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