AP Physics: Free-Body Diagrams

I gave a short lecture on the types of forces, then had students work on drawing some free-body diagrams. I’m being really picky about including the interaction when labeling forces this year (i.e. F_{g (Earth on object)}) which I’m hoping will pay off in deciding whether a force should be there as well as with the 3rd law. There were some great conversations about which forces need to be accounted for as well as what causes an object to move forward after the force is done.

Earth Science: Wind Maps

Students used some maps to look for a relationship between average wind speeds and topography. Then, they picked what locations in Minnesota might make sense for a wind farm. This lead to some good conversations about trade-offs in engineering, such as why  there are some wind farms near big cities, even in parts of the state with relatively slow average wind speeds.