Day 3 Unit 3

Studying phase changes is not quite as interesting as it might sound :) Actually, depending on the demonstrations I am doing that day, it isn't so bad. On this particular day, the thrill was simply talking about how a toilet works, which, on the hole, isn't actually a phase change, though it does involve at least a couple of phases, and sometimes all three.

The principle we were looking at was how a siphon works. It is actually pretty amazing to watch when a siphon takes over. I have a tantalus cup in class that shows the basics behind the siphon tube in a toilet's bowl. When the siphon is completely full of water, it drains itself and the bowl. Pretty slick.

SJ.

Day 2 Unit 3

I have started a new tradition (assuming it lasts) of letting students work on that night's homework while the homework for that day is checked. Mrs. Nolan and I like the system so far. First, it reduces the workload for our overworked students. Second, it is a quiet time where I am sure that students are actually reading the material themselves and attempting to answer the questions themselves. This is so important. On parents' night I talked about our effort as a team to reward and encourage effort above sheer ability. I think that students want to make the effort but too much HW curtails their attempt and makes them take shortcuts. This is a little way to pay into that system of rewarding effort.

SJ.

Day 1 Unit 3

Ah, the start of a new unit. You can almost feel the excitement in the air. Or maybe that is the smell of mothballs from this week's density roundup lab. I can't tell, myself, being colorblind.

This unit is on solids, liquids, and gases. What are their main differences and what are their similarities? First, they are all just different phases or states of the same substance. For water, the substance we know the best for these three states, it is easy to tell differences in volume and shape.

I also talked about the fourth (actually the fifth) state of matter: plasmas. The first state of matter, from least amount of thermal energy on up, is Bose Einstein Condensates. Have fun reading about them.

SJ.

Day 14 Unit 2

I am rapidly falling behind on my goal to blog everyday. My apologies.

This was test day. Not really a fun day like I try to usually have, but a necessary one. Test scores overall were good, I thought. Some students need to spend more time studying, especially taking my online practice tests.

SJ.

Day 13 Unit 2