AP Physics 1: Systems and Bar Charts

Students worked on whiteboarding some problems switching between different systems for energy bar charts. Students were doing a nice job of switching smoothly between different systems.

Physics: Conservation of Momentum Problems

Students worked on calculations with conservation of momentum. This is the first year I’ve really used momentum bar charts, and its also the first time I’ve had students call conservation of momentum easy. The best part was I overheard a lot of students talking about whether their answer was reasonable based on their bar charts. When one of my AP sections came in, I still had some bar charts on the whiteboard and my AP students asked why I didn’t teach them momentum bar charts since it made the problem seem much easier. I’m sold and will be bringing bar charts into AP next year.

Chemistry Essentials: Pivot Interactives Density

I am as part of Pivot Interactive’s Chemistry Fellows program.

Students worked on an activity in Pivot Interactives to identify materials based on their density. I ended up giving students a handout to record their work, rather than having them answer in Pivot’s interface, since something about writing on paper seems to feel more comfortable for a lot of my students. I was really excited about how many students on their own tried to decide between multiple materials with similar densities by paying attention to what they could see about the material. It was also nice to be able to easily split up the class to look at different liquids so we can have some conversation tomorrow about who should have similar answers and who should have different answers, and why.