AP Physics: Kirchoff’s Laws

Students attempted to apply their patterns to some fill-in-the-blank circuits and whiteboarded statements to describe the patterns they’d found using both the simulation and the real-world lab. It definitely felt more challenging than last year, but I think it was because of how I broke things down to get into a computer lab. Next year, I will get laptops or tablets instead so we can stay in the classroom, then do both the simulation and physical lab for series one day, then do both versions of the parallel lab the next day. That should reduce how much information students are trying to keep track of to make this series of labs more manageable.

Earth Science: Rock Cycle

I modified an activity from the middle school Modeling Instruction curriculum using crayons to look at the rock cycle. I had students make some shavings to represent weathering and erosion, then squish the shavings together for a sedimentary rock. Students then melted their sedimentary rock and let it cool to make an igneous one. Next time, I think I’ll have them use higher pressure, maybe from a stack of books, to get metamorphic rocks in there.