Simple Harmonic Motion

Day 98: Whiteboarding Galore

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AP Physics 1: Oscillating Spring Whiteboarding

Students whiteboarded some problems for a mass on a vibrating spring. They are recognizing the parallels to pendulums and successfully connecting a lot of the ideas I want them to connect.

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Physics: Projectile Whiteboarding

Students whiteboarded some problems for horizontally launched projectiles. A lot of students are making good use of energy to simplify the math on the vertical motion and things seemed to click for a lot of students today.

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Chemistry Essentials: Bohr Model Whiteboarding

Students used the Bohr model of the atom to whiteboard structures for some of the first 20 elements, also bringing in what we figured out yesterday about isotopes. I ask students to predict the two most common isotopes, which requires rounding the average mass both up and down, and a few students had some trouble with rounding to predict isotopes like H-2, but they were able to get there with some support.

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Day 97: Assessment, Problems, & Penny Isotopes

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AP Physics 1: Assessment

Students took their pendulum assessment, initially scheduled for last Friday. They’ve been very quick to grade since students did really well.

Physics: Problems

Students worked projectile motion problems. A lot of students needed some coaching to remember how to solve problems from a velocity vs. time graph, which tells me we could stand to do a little more spiraling content in the course, but students were pretty successful overall. There was a great moment where a few students were feeling much more confident than usual who objected when someone at their table tried to get help from me before talking about their question with the rest of the table.

Chemistry Essentials: Penny Isotopes

Students used pennies to represent different isotopes of an atom, comparing the average mass of their whole set to the average mass of each type of penny. Because I distributed the pennies pretty randomly, all of the groups ended up with more post-1982 pennies, but I think it would have driven the point home a little stronger if some groups had more pre-1982 pennies.

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Day 96: Lots of Whiteboarding

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AP Physics 1: Spring Period Board Meeting

We had a board meeting for the lab on the period of a spring. With all the days we’ve lost due to weather (and the potential for more in the forecast…), I cut it a bit short. My students aren’t in a place where they linearize automatically, but we did have some good conversation about the fact that the intercepts on the period vs. mass graph don’t make sense and students were very quick to come to a consensus that it sure looks like a square root relationship.

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Physics: Projectile Calculations

We revisited last week’s problem about an orange dropped from a tower to transition into projectile calculations. Students got into groups and whiteboarded solving for the time the orange took to fall and its final velocity. In each section, I had one group that opted to use conservation of energy to find the final velocity of the orange, which was a great way to contrast two different approaches. From there, we gave the orange some horizontal velocity to flesh out the calculations. This approach really drove home that students are being asked to remix old skills, not do something new.

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Chemistry Essentials: Bohr Model Whiteboarding

Students did a short worksheet figuring out the Bohr model structure of elements near the beginning of the periodic table. Afterward, students whiteboarded their answers for a gallery walk. I had each group do two elements from the same family to help the pattern in the number of valence electrons pop out.

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Day 95: Springs, Graph Jeopardy, & Build an Atom

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AP Physics 1: Spring Period

Students collected data to determine what impacts the period of a spring. I always get a kick out of how often I overhear students predicting that the mass won’t matter since it didn’t for a pendulum, only to be surprised.spring.jpg

Physics: Graph Jeopardy

I have this class the first and last hours of the day, which means it was more impacted by last week’s weather than my other classes. I had a quiz on sketching graphs for projectiles today and decided to do some Jeopardy whiteboarding to make sure everyone was in the groove. Each group sketched a pair of velocity vs. time graphs for a projectile, then another group had to come up with a situation that matched the graphs.

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Chemistry Essentials: Build an Atom

Students used PhET’s Build an Atom simulation to explore the Bohr model. This was their first exposure to atomic models in the course, but students were able to pick up on all of the big ideas I wanted by playing with the simulation.

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Day 93: Pendulums, Projectile Graphs, & Periodic Table Predictions

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Today was a little strange; we had some snowfall that gradually got heavier over the course of the day. While our official release was only 15 minutes early, a lot of kids were excused earlier by their parents. The unofficial gradual release likely made the parking lot much safer after school, but it did make afternoon classes tricky.

AP Physics 1: Pendulum Problems

We used a pendulum in front of a motion detector to take a look at the position vs. time and velocity vs. time graphs for a pendulum, then students worked on some problems connecting earlier topics to the motion of a pendulum. Students made some great connections, with one group having a very involved conversation about how their experiences on a swing connect to what they know about pendulums.

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Physics: Projectile Graphs

Some discussion about a kickball tossed over a motion detector was just what students needed to connect the Pivot Interactives activity from earlier in the week to yesterday’s work on a falling orange. Afterward, students worked on some problems sketching velocity vs. time graphs for various projectiles.

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Chemistry Essentials: Periodic Table Predictions

One of the periodic trends we’ve been looking at is how likely an element is to react. Today, students made a prediction ranking several halogens based on the likelihood of a reaction, then we mixed samples with mineral oil and various salts to see which one was most likely to react. Students were excited that they could make an accurate prediction based on what they know about the periodic table.

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Day 91: Pendulums, Projectile Graphs, & Periodic Table Card Sort

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AP Physics 1: Pendulums

Students collected data for variables that affect the period of a pendulum. This was a day where I could tell students are getting better at experimental design and more comfortable with being independent; groups were able to work through challenges and surprises with very little input from me.

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Physics: Projectile Graphs

Students whiteboarded their results from yesterday’s activity in Pivot Interactives. They had to shake some of the dust off their skills on interpreting motion graphs, but it came back quickly and students made the connections I was after very successfully.

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Chemistry Essentials: Periodic Table Card Sort

Students worked on a card sort to introduce the periodic table. A few students were really eager to know what some of the features of the cards represented, which lead to some great conversations in lab groups about patterns they saw with those numbers.

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Day 160: Graphite Wire, Pendulum Review, & Energy Bar Charts

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Today was the start of seniors’ last week of school.

AP Physics: Graphite Wire

Students continued to work on their final projects. One student used a graphite pencil to sketch “wires” on a sheet of paper and worked on collecting data on the potential difference at the LED. I wasn’t sure if a pencil would leave a thick enough layer of graphite, so got pretty excited when she got this to work.

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Its hard to see, but the LED is glowing!

Physics: Pendulum Review

With the final exam starting on Thursday, we took some time today to start reviewing. I started with some pendulum questions that I expected to be pretty quick and easy, but it took a lot longer than I hoped. I didn’t do as nice a job of spiraling as I would have liked this spring, so students were very rusty on some of the concepts they needed.

 

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Chemistry Essentials: Energy Bar Charts

Students worked on energy bar charts for chemical reactions. The hardest part for a lot of students was parsing what exactly was happening at each snapshot for the energy bar carts; in general, I haven’t pushed the idea that some representations are like a photo that shows a specific instant while others are like a movie that shows change over an extended period, which would have helped today.

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 135: Whiteboarding

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AP Physics: Angular Momentum

Students whiteboarded yesterday’s problems. There was a lot of good discussion; I think rotation is starting to click for a lot of students. I also did a few demos, including one with an RC motorcycle inspired by a Evel Knievel statement prior to a jump over the Snake River Canyon that his biggest fear was accidentally letting go of the gas while in mid-air.

 

Physics: Oscillating Particle Whiteboarding

Students whiteboarded yesterday’s problems. The connections between the math and the big ideas seem to be clicking for a lot of students. One of the questions we discussed is whether the angle of a ramp should affect the period of a cart oscillating on a spring, so I set up the demonstration.

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Chemistry Essentials: Percent Yield 

I kept the whiteboarding pretty short since a quiz on percent yield was also on deck for today and the para working with the class had let me know that students had done very well with the problems. We targeted a couple of trouble spots, like a problem where a lot of students dropped a decimal point yesterday, leading to over 800% yield. I was really pleased that students recognized why that was not a reasonable answer, even if they had trouble finding the error.

Day 134: Problems Galore

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I had a sub today, so no pictures. All three of my classes worked on problems.

AP Physics: Angular Momentum

I gave students some angular momentum problems. Its been a while since we hit linear momentum hard, so I’ll be curious to see how it went shaking the dust off and translating to angular scenarios. I also threw in some torque problems; on the last quiz, a lot of students weren’t sure what an extended free-body diagram is, so that is something I needed to make sure to revisit.

Physics: Springs & Pendulums

Students did some problems using the equations for the period of a spring and period of a pendulum. Earlier this week, some students were having trouble distinguishing the two formulas, but I think the lab practicals helped. I’m hoping that shows up in how the problems went.

Chemistry Essentials: Percent Yield

Students did some percent yield problems. They look very similar to the stoichiometry problems we’ve been doing, with a step added at the end to calculate percent yield. When I got to school for parent-teacher conferences, I was able to connect with my sub and the para who supports the class, and both told me the problems went very well for the majority of students; they are seeing the connections between what we’ve done previously and the new material. The para also reminded me I need to crack down on students showing their work; a lot of students are frustrated because looking back at their old work isn’t helpful, but they don’t yet see that writing out their work would change that.