Physical Science: Energy Types

Students used PhET’s Energy Skate Park sim to begin exploring energy. Their directions were to open up the bar graph, then find as many ways as they could to change the size of each bar. Tomorrow, their observations will lead into the definitions for kinetic and potential energy.

PhET’s Energy Skate Park

Physics: First Board Meeting

Students prepped whiteboards with their results from the Buggy Lab, then we had our first board meeting. I talked more than I wanted to during the meeting, partly because I was rushing to get students ready for a sub tomorrow and partly because I didn’t take enough time to set expectations or let students pre-discuss in smaller groups. Next time, I want to try using Casey Rutherford’s Observations, Claims, & Evidence structure to provide students with a little more scaffolding. My students were very willing to speak up and take risks during the board meetings, so I’m excited to see how future ones go!

Student whiteboard

Another student whiteboard