Day 156 – Concave Mirrors

 

Physics 11 – Today we continued with our investigation into mirrors.  Students found the focal length of a mirror by projecting an image from a distant object.  Next they were asked to find the image distance for a given object distance, using three different methods: direct measurement, calculation using the focal length, and doing a scaled ray diagram.

As I noted from last day in physics, I hoped that students could use a cooperative learning environment to successfully solve mirror problems.  It turned out that the substitute felt that kids should work quietly and independently.  Uh huh.

Day 155 – Fundamental Particles

Science 8 – Students followed a WebQuest to learn about Quarks and Leptons. The class was really engaged, even though they had to share one computer for every three kids. When we reviewed the activity and I randomly called on students, they were all able to give an answer and seem comfortable with what they were saying.

Here is a link to the document I gave them to follow: fundamental particles

Day 154 – Mirror Equation

Physics 11 – Today was a very short day for me, as I had to go to the board offices for some training on our new SIS.  It was a good test for the students though: I left a package on doing calculations for mirrors. The idea was to use the readings, worked examples, and student crowd sourcing to figure out how to do these types of questions. Once a student gets a correct answer to a question and feels comfortable with the solution, they put their name on the whiteboard and volunteer as a helper for that question.

Day 153 – A View from Here

Science 9 – Students were asked to create a small project.  Each group was given an object to research. They had to find a bit of information about the object, and then describe what the Earth would look like if a person were on the object looking at us right now. So if a person was in the Andromeda Galaxy which is 4 million light years away, they would see the Earth as it was 4 million years ago. It was a great activity to learn about different types of objects in space and learn about distances in the universe.  This activity was taken from the Perimeter Institutes teacher resources.

Day 152 – Pan Flute Performances

Physics 11 – I had some of my students perform their song with their panflutes today. Surprisingly, several groups did not close one end of their tube.  One group performed “One Love” by Bob Marley, which was pretty much fantastic.

Day 151 – Playland pt2

Science 8 – My grade 8 students went to playland today. It was another warm and sunny day and an overall good experience. I must admit that I really question the purpose behind this field trip. I’m not sure if it will happen in subsequent years for grade 8’s with the new curriculum.

Day 150 – Ray Diagrams and Plane Mirrors

Physics 11 – I had students try to project an image from a plane mirror on to a screen.  I can be cruel at times. This leads to a discrepant event – what is a real image and what is a virtual image? I don’t let them struggle for too long…

Day 149 – Space Center

Science 9 – Today the grade 9’s had their field trip to the Space Center.  I chose for them to do three activities: cosmic courtyard, planet hunter and a movie on black holes. As anticipate, the black holes movie was the highlight.  The cosmic courtyard needs a major refresher, as many of their exhibits don’t work anymore….

Day 148 – Pro D

Pro D – I spent a fair bit of time today putting together some new unit plan ideas for the new curriculum part of Atomic Theory for Science 8.  I delved into some of the materials that the Perimeter Institute have put together.

Day 147 – The Expanding Universe

Science 9 – As part of their learning about the Big Bang and the expanding universe, students do an activity where they model this expansion with balloons.  They noticed that all of the galaxies move away from each other and that the expansion goes in all directions.  To help with these topics, I’m using parts from the Perimeter Institutes resource package.