AP Physics: Center of Mass

Students continued yesterday’s video analysis, based on the article by Taylor Kaar, Linda Pollack, Michael Lerner, and Robert Engles in The Physics Teacher. Today, students analyzed the motion of four hover disks linked into a square from several different perspectives. They were a little bothered that it was tricky to spot the center of the square, but I like that we’ll be able to have a conversation about whether there has to be any mass at the center of mass.

Physics: Board Meeting

Students whiteboarded their results from the video analysis the last few days. Framing this around a CER with a more specific question than usual had the desired effect and I saw students keeping much more complete records than usual. Students are continuing to struggle with recognizing the physical meaning of features on the graph, so I need to keep giving students opportunities to work on that.

Chemistry Essentials: Gas Laws Simulation

Students used the PhET Gas Properties simulation to take quantitative data for the ideal gas laws. I think the class would have benefited from a little more discussion prior to using the simulation to set up what we were measuring and why, rather than just giving them an assignment in Google Classroom that told them what to measure. However, students were very successful in recognizing the quantitative relationships I wanted them to see.