Young Bill is at it again!

Young Bill was back to his old tricks trying to pretend to know a lot about physics. Too bad Young Steve wasn't around to help him out. We had the unfortunate task of reviewing his essay on friction today in class and boy was it horrendous. After finding and correcting his mistakes, we made a plan for writing a better essay of our own. That is tonight's assignment: write a 1 page essay about friction. Remember to avoid slang and to make sure your facts are correct. You need an introductory paragraph that states your thesis, and a conclusion that restates your original thesis and brings the piece together. The paragraphs in the middle are where you provide your details and evidence.

Remember your tools from Humanities: HOM and PACTS

Good luck!

Tuesday's Homework May 25, 2010

Homework: Explain the types of friction that occur when you ride a bike through a puddle. Provide evidence to support your ideas. (1/2 page)

All for the friction!

Today we learned about four different kinds of friction: static, sliding, rolling and fluid.

Tonight's homework is to answer the following: Knowing what we know about these four types of friction, why do you think fluids are often placed between the sliding parts of machines? (think of a bicycle chain, or the bearings on a skateboard) What would happen if there wasn't any fluid? What would be the difference? Why is it beneficial to use fluid? (1 long paragraph to half a page).

The second part of tonight's homework is simply to check out this website and make a few searches and see what information you find: www.wolframalpha.com

Good luck!

Binder Check!

Homework for this weekend is very simple: we have to organize our binders for Monday's BINDER CHECK!!! ARGH!!! There should be 26 pages of Naje Notes for Unit 6. Check your binder and if you are missing any pages, contact a friend and get the notes you're missing. Also, make sure it is properly formatted. Even if the notes are complete, if the notes are not in the correct format, you will lose points.

Non-Friction!

Today we started discussing some of friction's properties as a force. We discovered that no matter what direction of the motion, friction will be right there to oppose it.

Tonight's homework is Thinksheet #125 which reviews yesterday's lesson on Net Force. The two people doing the pushing and pulling were originally going to be Messer and Woo Shik, but they were unavailable so you have two stand-ins instead. It's three pages long, but easier than it looks. Use your notes and common sense. It will be collected Friday and graded. Good luck!

Use the force!

Today we learned about balanced and unbalanced forces.  We worked our way through many bizarre problems and even watched Naje get defeated at arm wrestling...Argh! But we came away with a better understanding of balanced and unbalanced forces. From the looks of it, good old Luke and Vader have a Net Force of 0N (that means they are balanced and we shouldn't witness any movement).

For tonight's homework we need to make some inferences. You won't get much help on this one. You're going to have to use some old school self-reliance for this one. Here it is:

Why is sandpaper made the way it is? How does it work exactly? What do you know is happening? (1/2 page response)

Tuesday May 18, 2010

Tuesday we learned a little more about forces and what they do. Four things we understood about forces are:

- a force can make an object move

- a force can make an object stop (stand still)

- a force can make a moving object change direction

- a force can make an object change speed

The question for tonight's homework is the following:

Is it possible to make an object move without pushing or pulling it? (1 paragraph)

May The Force Be With You!

Today we talked about forces. We defined force as a push or a pull on an object. A force we are all familiar with is gravity, but there are many others. Friction is a force that opposes motion between two surfaces in contact. Usually we want to avoid friction. But for tonight's homework you have to describe ways in which friction can be beneficial. Give examples and provide evidence to support your ideas. (half page).

Still coasting!

Hey SOFers! Today we had the pleasure of watching Naje try out his horrible roller coaster ideas and fail epically. We were able to see the relationship between height and gravitational potential energy, between velocity and kinetic energy, and between friction and dissipated energy(heat/thermal energy and sound energy). It was a lot of fun testing out those designs and looking at the physics involved. Hey wait a second...physics and fun in the same sentence...is that possible? Hmm...

Lucky for you this weekend's homework is to continue working on the Coaster Creator Lab and complete it by Monday. Next week should bring more fun with Physics. Til then have a great weekend! (and finish the lab and postlab!)

We're coastin now!

Today we had a wild time building roller coasters in class! We had a lot of crashes and several trains were left stranded in the middle of the tracks. But every now and then someone would find that perfect balance between potential and kinetic energy and we'd hear the screams of a successful run! It was pretty awesome.

Tonight's homework is to continue your work with the Coaster Creator Lab. If you've completed the Lab, get started on the Post Lab. If you need to continue working on your Lab, you can do so at http://www.jason.org. Remember you will need your username and password. If you've finished with everything, feel free to visit the site to build some crazy coasters. Try to get a score of over 9000!!! Okay, 9000 is impossible, but if you can build a coaster that gets over 3000, there may be a reward for you. So be sure to give it a shot. Good luck!

Did I see his eyes move?

Everytime I look at this painting I get the feeling that there's somebody watching me. I always wonder: Did his eyes just move? Which leads me to tonight's homework. We can all describe moments where we saw something move - a taxi driving down Broadway, a bird flying through the air, a surfer at the beach. But How do we know it is actually moving? Tonight's homework requires you to explain a fail-proof method for determining if an object is or is not moving (1 paragraph to half a page). Good luck! Wait, did he just move his eyes again? So creepy...

We've got the potential to get kinetic!

We've spent the last two days talking about kinetic and potential energy. I think by now we have a pretty good idea of what each is. Time to put our knowledge to the test. Tonight's homework is to respond to the following:

While you ride in a passenger plane do you have greater potential energy or greater kinetic energy? Why do you think so? Support your answer with evidence and examples from class as well as observations you've made in real life (1 long paragraph to 1/2 a page).

Monday May 10, 2010 - Homework

Monday's homework was to try to explain how a flashlight might work in terms of energy. Where does the energy come from? Where does the energy go? Be sure to use vocabulary from the current unit (1 long paragraph to 1/2 a page).

Weekends are for fun...

...and nothing says fun like a Lab Report! That's right people, the only homework we have for this week is to complete our Lab Reports and have them ready to hand in Monday morning! Remember to follow your checklists! The one thing you won't need to worry about this time is making charts or graphs, but you MUST include a data table and a diagram. Have fun and good luck! See you Monday!

Let's Energize!!!

Today we defined 7 kinds of energy:

Mechanical
mechanical energy can be considered either kinetic (moving object) or potential (stored energy based on position). The image above shows objects exhibiting kinetic and potential energy.

Thermal
all of the energy from the random motion of the particles that make up an object

Chemical
the energy that holds atoms together in a molecule or compound

Electrical
the energy of moving electrons

Sound
the energy caused by an object's vibrations

Light
the energy produced by the vibrations of electrically charged particles

Nuclear
the energy that holds protons and neutrons together



Tonight's homework is to provide an example of each kind of energy discussed and present evidence for including it in one category or another. Here are two examples:

Ex 1: I would say that a car driving down Broadway is showing kinetic energy because it is in motion.
Ex 2: A stereo playing music is a form of sound energy, because the sound comes from the vibration of the speakers.

Energy!

Energy! What created it? Where does it come from? Why is it wearing those horrible shoes? Some questions may never be answered about the mysteries of energy but there are a few things we do understand about it:

1. Energy has no mass
2. Energy does not take up space (it has no volume)
3. Energy is the capacity to do work (ability to move matter)

Some examples of energy are light, heat, motion and electricity.

Tonight's homework is Thinksheet #4. There are four images on the page. We need to list as many examples of matter and energy as we can. For example here is what I wrote for the last photo with the space shuttle launching:

Matter: launch tower, rocket tanks, space shuttle, smoke
Energy: light, heat, motion, sound (the blast-off)

What is it?

Hmmm...what to choose what to choose...Chemistry or Physics? Well it's definitely not Biology!

Tonight's homework is to do the following:

Present 3 examples of real life situations that would fall under Chemistry. Then present 3 examples of real life situations that would fall under Physics. Each example should be accompanied by a detailed explanation as to why you believe it should be categorized as Chemistry and not Physics, and vice versa.

Use the lists in your Foldable to help you with ideas.

For example, let's say I fall off of a ladder while painting my house. I look at the Foldable and see that gravity falls under Physics. So me falling down is a matter of Physics.  But if I accidentally burn my house down, then I would look at my Foldable and see that fire and chemical reactions are matters of Chemistry, so I would classify the burning of my house as Chemistry. Argh! Now I have no house and a big bruise on my head!

Port Again aka Report!

Last Friday you had to answer the following question: Why do we write Lab Reports? Monday we shared some of our ideas in class. Then we looked at our old labs and talked our way through the Copper Chloride Lab Checklist. After having revisited this question, how does your answer today compare with your answer on the homework? Do you feel the same way? Were there any new ideas that you heard today that you hadn't considered before? Also, now that you have a clearer understanding of why we do lab reports, can you tell us what a good lab report should look like? What makes a good lab report good? What makes a bad lab report bad? What do you hope to accomplish with your lab report?

Address these questions in about a 1/2 page reponse for tonight's homework.