Projectile Motion

Day 45: Exploring Sound & Projectile Calculations

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Physical Science: Exploring Sound

Students did a lab to start exploring some of the properties of sound waves. They were very impressed by the tuning forks and a lot of groups went beyond the questions I’d posed and came up with more things to explore. One thing that drives a lot of people nuts about 9th graders is their lack of inhibitions, but I’ve come to love that uninhibitedness in this class because it means they don’t hesitate to share their excitement over an interesting observation, ask a crazy question, or do an extra experiment.

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Physics: Projectile Calculations

Now that students know what the velocity vs. time graphs look like for a projectile, they dove into some problems. I’m continuing having them use graphical solutions a’la Kelly O’Shea where students solve from velocity vs. time graphs, rather than getting the kinematic equations. Compared to when I’ve given students the equations, students are much more aware of how projectile motion connects to the earlier constant velocity and constant acceleration models, and therefore less freaked out by motion in two dimensions.

Day 44: Introducing Sound & Video Analysis

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I was out for a field trip today, so no photos.

Physical Science: Introducing Sound

Students did some reading on sound waves today and started connecting it to what they’ve learned so far about waves in general.

Physics: Projectile Video Analysis

Students recorded videos of projectiles being thrown at different angles, then did some video analysis to see how that affects how high and how far the projectile travels.

Day 43: Snakey Springs & Video Analysis

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Physical Science: Snakey Springs

After getting a few vocabulary terms for waves, students got out the snakey springs to start looking for qualitative relationships between wavelength, frequency, and amplitude. I was surprised at how impressed students were when they realized a wave reflects off the end of the snakey spring; as I make the course more inquiry based, I’m reminded how easy it is to assume students have certain experiences or background knowledge they just don’t have.

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Physics: Video Analysis

Our awesome tech guy got Logger Pro working on the netbook cart, so today I introduced students to doing video analysis. As a class, we walked through analyzing a video of a tennis ball tossed straight up in the air so students would have some idea of what the results should look like. Tomorrow, they’ll record and analyze their own videos.

Day 42: Energy Position Project & Projectile Motion

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Physical Science: Energy Position Project

Students started a research project on different energy sources. As part of the project, students have to develop a support an opinion on their energy source. At the end of next week, students will give a presentation to the rest of the class on their energy source.

Physics: Projectile Motion

We finally got Logger Pro installed on a netbook cart for students to use, so I had grand plans of teaching my students to use Logger Pro’s video analysis so they could generate position vs. time and velocity vs. time graphs of videos they’d recorded. But I made the mistake of not testing the netbooks before class and found out the hard way that, while everything works just fine on the school’s desktop computers, our netbooks use an old version of Quicktime, which means no viewing videos in Logger Pro.

In my second hour, I had students record some video tossing softballs and tennis balls at different angles. For my fourth hour, I used my prep to do some analysis of one of Vernier’s sample videos and gave my students the graphs and some conceptual questions. Our tech guy spent the afternoon updating Quicktime on the netbook cart, so I’ll probably have my students do some video analysis tomorrow.

Projectile Graphs