Waves

Day 155: Whiteboarding, Refraction, & Quiz

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Tonight is our annual Relay for Life, so students were not at their most focused today.

AP Physics: Whiteboarding

The students who will be taking the AP Physics 1 exam next week whiteboarded problems from this year’s free response. Students needed more hints than I hoped to get started, but I think that was more to do with excitement over Relay than physics skills getting overly rusty. I still think it will be worth taking some time next week to revisit strategies for breaking down a problem.

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Physics: Refraction

After a quiz on ray diagrams, students did a qualitative lab on refraction, making observations of various objects in a clear cup of water and laser beams in a fish tank. Since the fish tank was out anyway, I also left one of my favorite critical angle demos set up.

 

Chemistry Essentials: Quiz

Students took their quiz on using an activity series to predict whether a single replacement reaction is likely. I also gave each student a printed copy of their current grade and we had some discussion about ways they can improve, especially retakes. My hope was students would work on preparing for retakes after they finished the quiz, but it didn’t pan out. I think a lot of it was simply because this was last hour on a beautiful spring Friday, with only a few hours to go until Relay for Life, but a few students expressed a lack of self-efficacy when it comes to their grade in this class; I need to keep working on how I can give students a sense of control over their learning in here.

 

Day 154: Resistivity, Ray Diagrams, & More Activity Series

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AP Physics: Resistivity

This year, I skipped over resistivity, so my students who took the AP Physics 1 exam last week had some trouble with free-response problem 2. Today, we took some time to look at the problem and discuss strategies for solving without any knowledge of resistivity. The students who took the test last week were very willing to share how they approached the problem, which was better than anything I could have said.

Physics: Ray Diagrams

Students worked through a worksheet on ray diagrams for pinholes. Students worked pretty quickly and confidently, so we had time to whiteboard answers for a gallery walk. There were some great conversations where students brought up their observations from the lab the past few days to decide whether their ray diagrams made sense.

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Chemistry Essentials: More Activity Series

Students worked on some additional problems identifying probably reactions using an activity series. I also had students predict the products of the reactions; since we haven’t done formula writing in a while, a lot of students needed a refresher. Once they got started, however, the problems quickly became pretty easy for students.

Day 153: Levitating Globe, Pinhole Viewers, & Hollow Pennies

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AP Physics: Levitating Globe

The approach I’ve fallen into in order to give students time for their final projects while embedding some review for the students who will be taking the AP Physics 1 exam on the make-up date. Today, I got out a globe that floats in a magnetic stand and asked students to predict what should happen to the reading on a balance when the globe is removed, an idea I got from Kelly O’Shea. One group did a thought experiment where the magnet was replaced with a spring supporting the globe to reason their answer and had a great conversation.
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Physics: Pinhole Viewers

We discussed some of the results of yesterday’s lab, focusing on how a ray diagram can explain the observations students made. Students are pretty quickly getting then hang of making sense of these diagrams.

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Chemistry Essentials: Hollow Pennies

Students did a conceptual lab practical on activity series today. I gave students an activity series for metals, then asked them to predict whether copper or zinc is more likely to react with hydrochloric acid. Then, I gave each student a penny with a wedge filed into it to test their prediction. I also showed students the hollow remnants of a penny that had been left in 12M hydrochloric acid for a few hours.

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Day 152: Final Project, Pinhole Viewers, & Activity Series

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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.

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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.

Day 151: Inertial Balance, Shadows, & Activity Series

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AP Physics: Inertial Balance

Since about 60% of my students are taking the AP Physics 1 exam on the make-up date, I’m adding in some review activities along with working on the final project. Today, I set up the inertial balance and asked students to make a few predictions about the motion, as well as what should happen when the mass is supported vertically. At the end of the hour, we used a motion detector to check students’ predictions.

For the final project, students’ proposal was due at the start of the school day today, and a few students told me they were hesitant about moving forward before seeing my feedback. Next time around, a Friday afternoon deadline may be better since then I can get feedback before their next class period.

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Physics: Shadows

The other physics teacher and I decided to wrap up the year with some basic optics. Today, students made shadows and sketched ray diagrams to explain what they saw. A lot of students commented that the ray diagrams were a really useful tool to think about what was going on, which was nice to hear, since we’ve had to really work on buy-in on a lot of other diagrams this year.

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Chemistry Essentials: Activity Series

Students did a simple lab to develop an activity series for several pure metals. Most of the solutions were 0.1 M, which wasn’t strong enough to get a very visible reaction in the time we had. Next time, I need to make sure I allow time to mix stronger solutions.

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Day 150: Final Project Work, Whiteboarding, & Quiz

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Its been a rough week, and I spaced out on taking pictures today.

AP Physics: Final Project Work

Students finalized their proposals for the final projects. A lot of students this year are interested in the idea of digging into a movie scene to see if the physics is realistic. I got out my copy of James Kakalios’ The Physics of Superheroes for interested students to take a look at since Kakalios does something similar with comic books.

Physics: Whiteboarding

Students whiteboarded selected problems from yesterday before taking their quiz on sound. A lot of students had trouble with a problem to determine whether an organ pipe is open or closed given the first three frequencies that produce standing waves; I think they weren’t connecting the sketches of standing waves we’ve been doing to the written problems.

Chemistry Essentials: Quiz

Students took a quiz on reaction types, as well as a second attempt at limiting reactant stoichiometry. Glancing over the quizzes, many of my stronger students relied heavily on particle diagrams, which is great to see. I need to keep working on helping all of my students connect those diagrams to the math.

Day 149: Final Project, Problems, & Whiteboarding

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AP Physics: Final Project

Students continued refining their proposals for the final project. Lots of students have ideas I’m really excited to see. A few students are working on ideas where it may be interesting to look at dissipated energy, so we got out the infrared camera to play a little. It turns out some glasses block a lot of IR.

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Physics: Problems

Students worked on some sound wave problems. Things seem to be clicking for most students.

Chemistry Essentials: Whiteboarding

We spent some time talking about the observations students made during yesterday’s lab and drawing explicit connections to the equation for the chemical reaction. My students don’t have a great sense for what certain chemicals look like, so it ended up being more teacher directed than I’d like. Students also weren’t sure when a chemical will show up as a gas, since I’ve dropped the subscript g in order to simplify the equations we’re looking at, but I’m not sure that is a useful simplification.

After the discussion (or, more accurately, lecture with student responses), student whiteboarded some limiting reactant problems. The students who were engaged made some good progress.

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This student asked me if I could write the symbols for sodium hydride and bromine oxide

Day 148: Final Project, Superposition, & Reaction Types Lab

/ Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

Today, I was missing  a lot of students from AP Physics and Physics for the AP Lit exam, so I kept those classes pretty low-key.

AP Physics: Final Project

The next few weeks are going to be tricky. About 1/3 of my students took the AP Physics 1 exam yesterday, and the rest won’t be taking it until May 24. I decided to go ahead and start the final project I’d planned, based on ideas from Casey Rutherford and Kelly O’Shea. Students are tasked with picking a scenario and using physics they’ve learned this year to describe what is going on. I pointed students to Rhett Allain’s Dot Physics for inspiration and most students spent today starting to think through potential topics.

Physics: Superposition

Students worked on a worksheet from Paul Hewitt’s Conceptual Physics sketching superpositions of triangular wave pulses. This year, students had a much easier time with the worksheet than I usually see; I think yesterday’s time playing with superposition on snakey springs made a big difference.

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Chemistry Essentials: Reaction Types Lab

Students worked through a lab to see each of the reaction types we’ve been working on in action. Students were clearly enjoyed the lab, and it was one of the most on-task days I’ve had with this group. Students made some great observations, but had trouble interpreting what those observations mean. Tomorrow, I want to spend some time making connections between observations and the equation for the reaction. I’ve also been thinking a lot this year about the purpose labs serve in a chemistry course, especially one as conceptual as this, and I think emphasizing the ways our paper and pencil representations explain what students see would be a way to add a lot of value to those labs.

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Copper in silver nitrate solution

Day 147: Test Day, Board Meeting, & Reaction Types

/ Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

Today was a strange day; a lot of students were impacted by some unexpected news last night.

AP Physics: Test Day

Today was the AP Physics 1 exam. However, we were able to give students the option of taking the make-up exam later this month and the majority of my students took this option. In my morning section, I’d planned to make today a game day for students to relax and have some fun before the exam, and decided to stick with that in both sections. Most students opted for some puzzles the calc teacher loaned me.

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Physics: Board Meeting

Students whiteboarded their results for yesterday’s speed of sound lab. The data came out very nice in both classes. Afterward, we had time for students to get the snakey springs out to start exploring wave superpositions. Even though I didn’t mention it in the prompts, one group got curious and tried to figure out whether the pulses reflect or pass through each other.

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Chemistry Essentials: Reaction Types

Classroom management gets tricky during labs with this class, so I decided to push back the lab I’d planned for today. Instead, I moved up a worksheet for students to practice identifying reaction types from chemical equations. One student was excited to show me an alternative representation she came up with for balancing chemical equations; its always exciting to not only have students coming up with their own ways of thinking about problems, but proud enough of their work to want to show it off.

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Day 146: Multiple Choice, Speed of Sound, & Whiteboarding

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AP Physics: Multiple Choice

With the AP exam tomorrow, I asked students which of several options they thought would be most useful and both classes requested we use Plickers to review multiple choice. Most students weren’t at their most focused today, but there were still some good discussions.

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Physics: Speed of Sound

Students worked on the classic speed of sound lab. Since several labs lately have been pretty rough, I structured the pre-lab discussion more like the way I do in September to get back to basics of experimental design and made sure sketches of the set-up made it onto the main whiteboard. I also took advantage of the fact that students have made other wavelength vs. frequency graphs to emphasize that students should graph as they go to see if their results make sense. My 1st hour got a lot farther than my 5th, but their slopes are coming out very nicely.

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Chemistry Essentials: Whiteboarding

The limiting reactant quiz last week did not go as well as I hoped, so we spent some time today whiteboarding a problem, emphasizing the role of particle diagrams. The students who were engaged seemed to get a lot out of the whiteboarding.

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