Monday, December 27, 2010

Friday, Dec 17, 2010

Physics poems/songs

Thursday, Dec 16, 2010

Showed Hewitt video on electric current. Demos with lights for series and parallel circuits.

Wednesday, Dec 15, 2010

Went over electrostatics lab sheet, redoing many of the demos. Handed back reading assignment, went over it, and re-collected it.

Showed demo of rotating a 2x4 with a charged rod.

Tuesday, Dec 14, 2010

Students did electrostatics mini-labs and worked on reading assignment on Electrostatics.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Monday, Dec 13, 2010

Continued with Relativity:

Showed using long spaceship example that events at different locations that occur at the same time for one observer do not necessary occur at the same time for an observer moving at constant speed with respect to that observer.

Showed bouncing light clock and how to get time dilation from this set-up.
Students worked out time dilation graphically.

Derived time dilation using Pythagorean Theorem

Tried using light clock to get length contraction.
Did example of traveling to distant star at fast speed and how time dilation and length contraction are related.

Discussed relativistic mass increase using Andy and Bob example and pushing spacecraft examples.

Simply stated E = mc^2 but worked out how much energy in 1 kg of matter and that it was more energy than lifting 100x the population of the Earth to a height of 100 m.

Kindergarten approach to general relativity. Light has energy, energy and mass are related, mass is affected by a gravitational field, light is bent in a gravitational field, light moves at the same speed for each observer. Therefore, the closer to the source of gravity, the slower the clock will tick.

Showed Hewitt video on Relativity.

Really didn't go over very well. MANY students paid no attention and carried on side conversations the entire class. Told students I would go back to having them do experiments rather than have me talk.

Friday, Dec 10, 2010

Handed back test and went over it.

Some students told me they wanted to cover relativity so I gave it a try. Started going through my gedanken but that didn't work well.

Developed relative velocity equation for high speeds.

Asked students to look at end of chapter 15 questions.

Many students just didn't seem to care.

Thursday, Dec 9, 2010

Test on rotational motion, torque, gravitation.

Wednesday, Dec 8, 2010

Review for test. Did problems on board for torque and balancing as well as problems using Newton's Law of Gravitation. Students worked on Quia for last half of class.

Tuesday, Dec 7, 2010

Showed a bit of the Hewitt video on tides. Students worked problems using the scientific notation keys on their calculators, calculating forces and tidal forces of Sun and Moon on Earth.

Monday, Dec 6, 2010

unicycle

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Friday, Dec 3, 2010

Hand out Tiger Bathroom passes to cut down abuse of Bathroom pass

Go over Kepler's Worksheet
Hand out Concept Map

Show weird Orbit of Mercury
HW - Demonstrate weird orbit of Mercury to parents

Test on Tuesday

Didn't get to this: Show unicycle - gyroscopic stability
or show Hewitt tides video.

Thursday, Dec 2, 2010

Finished Hewitt video on Gravity

Went over Reading Assignments for Circular Motion (9.1, 9.3)

Asked students to make a concept map for material since last test.
I put a sketch on board.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Wed, Dec 1, 2010

Students finished Orbit of Mars Lab.

Handed our Kepler's Laws worksheet for homework - due tomorrow.