AP Physics: Collisions

Students started collecting data for the momentum before and after a series of different collisions to discover conservation of momentum. Several groups had a lot of trouble with what we meant by before or after the collision, which showed up as trouble both in filling out the table I gave them and in seeing how to place the carts and photogates appropriately. I wonder if having students draw an SOS diagram for the first collision would have helped with that.

Physics: Graph Stacks

We used the motion encoder to check the graphs students drew for objects on ramps earlier this week. Afterward, students started working on translating between our different representations for accelerated motion. A lot of my conversations with students today have me thinking that many of them are memorizing shapes of graphs without understanding what they represent. I need to keep working on ways to help students attach meaning to the shapes.

Chemistry Essentials: Pressure

I put a large balloon and a small one on opposite ends of a PVC pipe, using alligator clips to close both. Students sketched particle diagrams to predict what should happen when I removed the clips; I wish I’d had them write CERs instead to encourage more interpretation of the particle diagrams. After I showed students both balloons stays the same size, I had them do a second round of particle diagrams to explain why. There was some great conversation about pressure, but I think that phase also would have been better served with a CER.