WSHS Science

1.  Watch this video:  Nuclear_Explosion
   1. What do you notice?  What do you wonder?
2. Kingdome Implosion: http://www.controlled-demolition.com/images/client/kingdome.mpg
   1. What do you notice?  What do you wonder?
   2. How is it different than the nuclear explosion?
3. Watch this video:
4. Read this page on Wikipedia about explosions:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosion
   1. What key info do you find there?
   2. What new vocabulary do you see?
   3. What Science content will we need to investigate more deeply?

OTHER LINKS:

• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FHSST_Physics/Collisions_and_Explosions/Explosions
• http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Explosions
• http://www.chemistryexplained.com/Di-Fa/Explosions.html
• http://imechanica.org/files/physics-I_0.pdf
• http://muller.lbl.gov/teaching/physics10/old%20physics%2010/chapters%20(old)/1-Explosions.htm 
• http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/momentum/U4l2e.cfm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosion

Some possible options:

1. Rocketry (design and launch your own rocket)
   1. Aerodynamics
   2. Energy transfers
   3. Fuel types
2. The Physics of Climate Change
   1. Thermodynamics
   2. Light
   3. Heat
3. Alternative Energy
   1. Types of energy sources – costs & benefits
   2. Electricity
   3. Work, Power, and Energy
4. The Physics of Explosions
5. Astronomy

Places to look for other ideas:

• Hyperphysics – http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/HFrame.html
• Wikipedia page about Physics – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics

Navajo Bridges - New Mexico

 Learning Targets:

1. I judge the effects of different types of forces & loads on a bridge
2. I build background knowledge about bridge design

Links:

• Balsa Bridge Building Contest – lots of information about building balsa bridges.  Our bridge building contest rules come from this site.
• PBS Building Big: Bridge Forces Lab - interactive “labs about the different types of forces & loads that affect a bridge
  

  Butterfly Bridge - Bedford, England

• HowStuffWorks: Bridges - lots of information about how bridges are built
• A Spotter’s Guide to Bridge Design – tons of info about different types of bridge designs
• Types of Bridges and How They Work – tons of info about different types of bridge designs
• Construction of Bridges – how to build bridges
  

  Zakim Bridge - Boston

I’ve been asked by students and a couple of parents – “why are we blogging in science class?”

There are several reasons:

Paper reduction

In my experience, students do not value paper.  They see any work done on paper as disposable – worth little more than the paper itself.  Paper assignments are constantly left laying around my room – from my class and from others – even work that has not yet been turned in!

We go through WAY too much paper in schools – nearly all of which ends up in the trash – wasting money and natural resources

Reflection for learning

I want students to reflect on their learning.

In my opinion (supported by educational research), students retain much more of their learning if they take the time to reflect on it.  This means thinking back on what they learned and why it is important and/or valuable.  This means evaluating the quality of their work and their level of effort.  It also means setting goals for future learning experiences!

Public nature of blogs

Students’ work on their blogs is public – visible to the world.  This raises the value of the work because it will not only be seen by their teacher.  Already my students have received comments and feedback from teachers around the country and from fellow students in Minden, Louisiana.  Parents and peers can also view the work and leave comments.

Creation of an electronic portfolio

Students in my classes are creating a year-long digital portfolio of their work.  At the end of the year, they will be able to look back on what they’ve done and reflect on how much they have learned.  They should be able to see evidence of their learning and their growth.

At the end of each semester, I plan to have my students compile some examples of their best work to post to their blog and reflect on.  This will be part of the final semester assessment in my class.

Revision

I have found this year that students are MUCH more willing to revise and improve work that has been done electronically.  Handwritten assignments that must be completely rewritten are rarely revised – even if the student is not happy with his/her grade!  It’s just too much work in their eyes to rewrite the whole thing!

This is the world that we live in!

The world that we live in – that my students have grown up in – is digital!

This is what they know and, more importantly, this is what their future lives will center around.  I am doing my part to help to prepare them for that world – as a student, as a future employee, and as a citizen

On 11/2/09, Chemistry spent the day traveling to 5 different stream sites to test the quality of the water.  We hit 2 spots along Toppenish Creek (Signal Peak Rd. & Harrah Rd.) and 3 spots along the Yakima River (Indian Church Rd., Granger Pond, & Zillah boat launch).

At each site, we tested the water for the following:

• Flow rate
• Turbidity
• pH
• Temperature
• Conductivity
• Dissolved oxygen

We also brought back water samples to test for:

• Nitrates
• Ammonium
• Calcium

The experience of the day was very postive and the students learned a lot about field work and water sampling.  Now we are busy analyzing the data that we gathered and students are learning what each of the testing parameters really means.  They will be posting their reflections to their blogs next week!

My Chemistry class generated this list, and I think it’s a good reference about what makes a good blog post:

1. Title (catchy & descriptive)
2. Interesting topic
3. Details
4. Use reasoning to support details
5. Pictures/ graphics
6. Organization and format
7. Keep it to the point!
8. Links to sources

This is the rubric that I use to grade blog posts: Blog Post Rubric

Some examples of outstanding blog posts:

• Denise’s Experiment Reflection
• Francisco’s Experiment Reflection
• Eric’s Experiment Reflection
• Meaghan’s Bridge Reflection
• Clint’s Bridge Reflection
• Sandra’s Egg Drop Reflection
• Jess’s Field Work Reflection
• Katie’s Field Work Reflection

What will go into your Physiology Experiment Project:

1.  Design an experiment to answer a question of your choice (see the experiment planning cheat sheet)
2. Carry out your experiment and gather data (we will do this in class next Tuesday and Wednesday – if you need more time than that, you’ll have to do it on your own)
3. Make conclusions based on your data – this is where you need to know your system REALLY well, so that you can explain how your experiment affected the system
4. Create a poster containing the parts of a lab report that will summarize your experiment and results (note: I will give you more information about the poster next week)
5. Present the poster in a poster session to an audience

Get an introduction to Newton’s Laws with this WebQuest!

Essential Question:  How do certain universal laws govern all motion?

Learning Target:  I can summarize each of Newton’s 3 Laws in my own words and give a real-world example of each

Instructions:

• Come up with a working definition of each of Newton’s 3 Laws (in your own words) and a real-world example for each that you can relate to
• Make a new post on your Edublog summarizing the 3 laws with a real world example and a picture for each
• Go to each of the following sites to find the information you need:

1. Newton’s 1st Law Animation – check it out and read the info
2. Newton’s 1st Law Summary – now go read the summary
3. Newton’s 2nd Law Animation - watch the animation
4. Newton’s 2nd Law Summary – summary of the 2nd law
5. Newton’s 3rd Law Animation – another animation!
6. Newton’s 3rd Law Summary - summary of the 3rd law
7. Hyperphysics - great concept webs and examples for all 3 laws

Here are a few sites to help you work with acceleration problems and be ready for our quiz tomorrow!

1.  Check out this animation: http://jersey.uoregon.edu/vlab/block/Block.html Play with the settings and make the cow move at different velocities & accelerations.  Pay particular attention to the graphs.  Look familiar?

2.  Good explanation and examples here:  http://library.thinkquest.org/10796/ch3/ch3.htm  Then take the quiz here: http://library.thinkquest.org/10796/ch3/ch3q.htm to check your knowledge!

3.  More practice problems here: http://www.physics247.com/physics-homework-help/speed-velocity-acceleration.php (do ones from section B – answers are at the bottom)

Students have learned how to use and maintain a scientific notebook as a record of their work and learning.  This notebook also serves as a very valuable resource for each student.  They often use these when doing projects, experiments, and assessments.

Students have learned to use the Vernier LabQuest data logger with a variety of probes (photogates and motion, force, velocity and acceleration sensors).  The LabQuests have been used to do labs investigating different types of motion (directional displacement, constant velocity, acclerated motion, free-fall).

The students were then engaged in an Egg Drop Challenge.  This challenge asked them to design a device to protect an egg dropped from the top of our school gym (10m or 30ft high).  They were given a limited list of materials to use in this challenge.  During this challenge, they also learned the following technological design process:

1. Identify criteria and constraints
2. Research
3. Brainstorm possible solutions
4. Choose best solution
5. Create a model
6. Test
7. Redesign (if necessary)

All students had successful egg drops (no eggs were broken), which has never happened before in my 5 years of doing this challenge with my Physics classes!

They have also learned how to post to a blog and have been doing much of their work electronically this year.  Their first posts to their blogs were a reflection on the egg drop challenge and a post about what they would like to learn this year.  The egg drop reflection was used as an assessment of their knowledge and students were expected to explain their learning with enough clarity and detail to prove their learning.

Right now, students are engaged in learning how to do calculations of velocity and acceleration and have designed an experiment with Mr. Rice’s car (with me driving) to settle a debate about the shape of the distance vs. time graph during accelerated motion.

Finally, we’ve done a lot of whiteboarding and discussion this year to debrief and reflect upon experiments.  This process has really helped the students to understand difficult physics concepts.