Physical Science: Snakey Springs

After getting a few vocabulary terms for waves, students got out the snakey springs to start looking for qualitative relationships between wavelength, frequency, and amplitude. I was surprised at how impressed students were when they realized a wave reflects off the end of the snakey spring; as I make the course more inquiry based, I’m reminded how easy it is to assume students have certain experiences or background knowledge they just don’t have.

Physics: Video Analysis

Our awesome tech guy got Logger Pro working on the netbook cart, so today I introduced students to doing video analysis. As a class, we walked through analyzing a video of a tennis ball tossed straight up in the air so students would have some idea of what the results should look like. Tomorrow, they’ll record and analyze their own videos.