AP Physics: Missing Energy

After watching a bouncy ball to see it loses mechanical energy, I tasked students with determining whether the energy is mostly dissipated during an impact with the table or mostly dissipated by air resistance. Today, they recorded video of the bouncy ball, then whiteboarded some representations for each explanation to get ideas about what could make good evidence. This is the first year I’ve done this activity where almost no groups think air resistance is the biggest factor. Students had a lot of great dialogue about forces and the motion of the bouncy ball as they worked on the representations.

Physical Science: First-Round Designs

Students worked on their first design for a cargo carrier that will protect an egg in a head-on crash. I don’t want this project to become just building, so I had students fill in a graphic organizer version of a CER, replacing the claim with their design idea and using the evidence and reasoning to explain why they think their idea will work. Tomorrow, I’ll help them make those explanations deeper by talking to each group while they build.