A lot of my AP Physics and Physics students were gone today for the AP Calc exam.

AP Physics: Final Project

I handed out copies of the 2018 free response for students who will be taking the exam next week. Students also had time to work on the problems and their final projects. I have a few students interested in programming, so I gave students the option of either collecting data or writing a program to model their topic. One student is toying with the idea of taking that approach to explore escape velocity.

Physics: Pinhole Viewers

Leah Segal recently tweeted that she gets through spring with seniors by trying out things she wants to do differently now, rather than waiting until next fall. With that in mind, I adjusted my introduction to today’s pinhole viewer lab. After a quick intro to the pinhole viewers, I had students get into their lab groups for a few minutes to talk about what they could change about the viewers. When I brought students back to have a whole class discussion of the pre-lab, students were much more involved and engaged than in prior pre-labs. Afterward, we went outside for students to spend some time exploring the ideas they’d come up with.

Chemistry Essentials: Activity Series

Students worked on a worksheet that focused on predicting whether a reaction is possible based on the activity series. I’m struggling a lot with keeping students engaged right now; the students who were focused made sense of what I needed them to make sense of today, but I also had a lot of students who were very checked out. This is pretty typical of the last few weeks, so I need to keep working on helping students see the value in the day-to-day work.