Motion

Day 68: Mistakes Game & Light the Bulb

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AP Physics: Mistakes Game

My students LOVE using the mistakes game to go over problems (a few have even decided to sneak in mistakes when they whiteboard problems in calculus), but it doesn’t lend itself nicely to complicated calculations like projectiles. To get around that, I tried having students whiteboard just the set-up to Friday’s problems for the mistakes game. Students embraced it and we had some good discussions about the physics without getting bogged down in the algebra. Since students did not see full solutions to the problems during class, I posted the answers, along with my complete solution to one of the problems, on Google Classroom.

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The artist made sure I saw the person on the bottom floor (where they physics room is) is happy and focused, while the history student on the top floor is angry enough to throw a book

Physical Science: Light the Bulb

Students were given an assortment of materials and tasked with lighting a light bulb. Afterward, we watched a clip from Minds of Our Own of MIT graduates attempting the same task. Students were pretty successful at picking out some of the key ideas about what a circuit is. Tomorrow, we’re using the PhET circuit construction kit, and I’ll probably have them start with the same task in the sim to reinforce that a circuit is a closed path since its not obvious with the light bulb.

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Day 67: Projectiles With v-t Graphs & Static Electricity

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AP Physics: Projectiles With v-t Graphs

Students took their first crack at projectiles launched at an angle. As with the rest of motion, I’m having them solve from velocity vs. time graphs, rather than the typical equations. I’ve had a number of students tell me they feel like this topic is easier than acceleration, which is a nice opportunity to show students the progress they’ve made so far this year.

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Physical Science: Static Electricity

Students did their first lab on static electricity today. I modified a lab from Eugenia Etkina’s PUM curriculum to make use of the static electricity kits we have. Most of the tests involved hanging a rubber rod from a string, so students had some trouble telling whether the rod was spinning due to static forces or due to tension in the string. Students pretty quickly figured out they could check by trying to repel the hanging rod in the opposite direction, they made some good observations. It was also tough to build up really big charges on the rods, so I might consider switching the equipment next year.

static-lab

Day 66: Projectile Practical & Seismic Accelerator

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AP Physics: Projectile Practical

Students wrapped up a lab practical today, predicting where a horizontally launched marble will hit the floor. Once they pulled it off, I pulled out a lighter marble and asked them to predict where it would hit without taking any new measurements. Last year, most groups spent a fair bit of time debating what should happen and trying lots of different calculations before they figured it out. This year, as soon as I pulled out the lighter marble, every group confidently stated it should hit the same spot and gave beautiful explanations for why. Its clear I’ve done a better job this year of giving students opportunities to confront that misconception.

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The retired referral forms work well as carbon paper

Physical Science: Seismic Accelerator

I showed students the seismic accelerator and asked them to predict what would happen when I dropped it, presenting their answer as a CER. Groups consistently drew nice bar charts, but, since we haven’t done anything quantitative with energy, it was tough for many students to recognize the tiny bouncy ball should fly above the original height. I like this as a follow-up to the bouncy ball lab, but next year, instead of having them make predictions, it might work better to show them what the seismic accelerator does, then have them draw bar charts and explain why the red ball goes so high.

Day 65: Writing Methods & Bouncy Ball Energy

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AP Physics: Writing Methods

Today, students started working on a lab practical to predict where a marble will hit the floor when it rolls off the edge of a table. Since my PLC is focusing on experimental design this year, I had each group write a method they could use to consistently release the marble and find its horizontal velocity. Then, I collected a method from each group, shuffled them, and gave each group a method they had to try and follow. In my second section, I told students they should actually find the horizontal velocity, then write the method in a way that the next group should get the same result, which really seemed to help students decide how much detail to include. This also very naturally lead to a lot of groups talking about how big their uncertainty is so they could decide if the group using their method was “close enough.”img_20161214_120111

Physical Science: Bouncy Ball Energy

Students measured the rebound heights as various bouncy balls bounced to look at the energy lost. While students really like the lab (bouncy balls are fun!), they don’t have to do much thinking about energy, even though I added some bar charts and energy questions. Tomorrow, I might pull out the seismic accelerator to have them make some predictions about a stack of bouncy balls in order to get them thinking about energy in these systems a little more.

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Day 64: Mistakes Game & Bar Charts

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AP Physics: Mistakes Game

We whiteboarded yesterday’s problems using the Mistakes Game. Most groups came up with their mistake by either talking about what they thought the most common wrong answer would be or by picking a mistake they made on the way to solving the problem. The highest math class had a field trip today, so a fair number of students were missing, but some students who are normally very quiet stepped up and spoke quite a bit, so I didn’t have to say much during either discussion. I was also pretty happy when the group presenting pointed to the “momentum force” on their free-body diagram and another student quoted Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride.

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Physical Science: Bar Charts

Students worked on drawing energy bar charts. Some students are struggling with how to tell which types of energy are present, but most got the hang of it once they revisited the definitions of the different types of energy. I do want to keep thinking about how I introduce energy in that class

Day 63: Projectile Problems & Energy Conservation

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AP Physics: Projectile Problems

For most of the hour, students worked on some problems for projectiles launched horizontally. A few students needed reminders to start by sketching and annotating their velocity-time graphs, but students were pretty successful once they remembered to use the graphs. Students also checked to make sure I’m not going to do anything crazy tomorrow, like go over the problems, when they’ve much rather do the Mistake Game.

On Friday, students requested slow-motion video of the race between a horizontally launched marble and a marble in free-fall, so I recorded some video before school.

 

Earth Science: Energy Conservation

Students whiteboarded their predictions for the scenarios in PhET’s Energy Skate Park I’d given them Friday, then we tested predictions and discussed the results. We especially focused on the total energy bar to get the idea of conservation of energy.

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Day 62: Board Meeting & Energy Types

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AP Physics: Board Meeting

Today, students whiteboarded the results of yesterday’s video analysis. Since my 2nd hour had quite a bit of discussion and worked through much of the sense-making while they were in the computer lab yesterday, I skipped some of the structure I’ve been using in board meetings and we got to the big ideas pretty quickly, which left time to whiteboard CERs of predictions for a demo that drops one marble straight down while launching a second horizontally. In my 2nd hour, I barely had to speak as the students spoke to each other and had some fantastic discussion that accomplished exactly what I hoped it would. In my 4th hour, my students were much more hesitant to speak up. They are a naturally quieter group and had a lot less dialogue in the computer lab, so I think they would have benefitted from some pre-discussion in their lab groups and a little more structure, like Casey Rutherford’s Observations, Claims, & Evidence which I’ve used to frame most of the board meetings this year.

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Physical Science: Energy Types

We had some discussion about what seemed to be key characteristics of the energy types in yesterday’s simulation to form a basis for some definitions. I took a page from Modeling Instruction and defined potential energy as coming from interactions, then had some discussion about what constitutes an interaction. In the past, I’ve used stored energy as the definition for potential in 9th grade, but I like that interaction energy solidifies the connection between potential energy and forces.

energy-defs

Day 61: Projectile Video Analysis & Energy Skate Park

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AP Physics: Projectile Video Analysis

I gave students two videos of some students tossing a basketball and a video analysis guide I put together, then tasked them with getting the position vs. time and velocity vs. time graphs for each video of the basketball. I had a bunch of students who got genuinely excited when they looked at the velocity vs. time graphs and started putting together what they know so far to begin a model of projectile motion. One group even cheered when the slope of their y-velocity vs. time graph matched what their model so far!

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Physical Science: Energy Skate Park

Students played with PhET’s Energy Skate Park simulation to look for how they could change the size of the various bars in the bar chart. Students pretty enthusiastically played with as many options as they could find, and made some nice observations, like how the motion of the skater changes when they switch to the moon or Jupiter.

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Day 60: v-t Graphs & Marshmallow Debrief

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AP Physics: v-t Graphs

We are starting projectile motion, so today I did a refresher on velocity vs. time graphs. I gave students a few graphs and asked them to annotate the graphs and translate to some other representations. A few of my students got to talking about how their written descriptions of the motion today compare to what they did when we first started constant acceleration, even pointing to particular words and phrases they’ve changed, and the specific change in understanding driving that.

At the end of the hour, I’d planned to go over a few problems on the board to limit how much time this took. When I asked for requests, my students asked if they could whiteboard their solutions instead, so I happily had them do a gallery walk. Have I mentioned lately that my students are awesome?

Physical Science: Marshmallow Debrief

We discussed yesterday’s Marshmallow Challenge. Students recognized many of the growth mindset themes, like the value in learning from failed attempts or the fact that multiple approaches are valuable. We also discussed some things that effective groups do. I want to revisit this discussion later in the tri for students to reflect on how well their group is working.

Day 56: Toilet Paper Drops & Review

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AP Physics: Toilet Paper Drops

Students wrapped up yesterday’s lab practical and got  chance to try dropping their toilet paper rolls. Groups were very successful. Especially in my second hour, I was really pleased that, without any prompting, the students in groups that finished early split up to look for other groups that could use some help.

 

Earth Science: Review

I had students review for Friday’s final by generating some possible test questions for each unit on a whiteboard, then trading boards with another group. When I put up the title of the first unit, there was a moment of panic as students tried to remember what it was even about, but they pretty quickly turned to their notebooks to remind themselves of the major concepts and look for ideas of questions to ask, which is exactly was I was hoping for.

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