Physical Science: Refraction

Students stuck pens, pennies, and other assorted objects into cups of water to develop some ideas about refraction. Students were very quick to connect their observations in the lab to their experiences from outside the classroom. The couple of students who’ve been bow or spear fishing were especially excited.

Students also made some observations of a laser pointer shining into a tank, aided by some creamer in the water and chalk dust in the air. It made a huge impression on these students when I used the chalk dust and laser pointer to show reflection yesterday, so they were thrilled to see it was still out today.

One particularly observant student noticed they could see three bright dots when the beam hit the side of the thank. We talked a bit about it, even though the students have only pretty rudimentary tools for talking about the behavior of light, and they decided that the center spot was the light reaching the outside edge of the glass while the outer spots was the light hitting the inside edge of the glass. Given the way this course skims the surface of each topic, I was pleased with their conclusion.

Physics: Final Review

Students took their last quiz of the trimester, covering projectiles, then started working on their final review. The review is mostly a packet of their quizzes from this trimester.