Welcome to the first week of second quarter!
This week in physics: We will take the unit two (chapter three) test on Monday and then begin our unit on forces and Newton’s laws of motion. For the test, refer to the unit 2 study guide and study as advised in class. Then to begin the next unit, please view three podcasts as homework for Tuesday: Force Podcast 1 – Net External Force, Force Podcast 2 – Weight, and Force Podcast 3 – Normal Force. (Note: These podcasts are cranky and may take a bit longer than usual to load.) We will do practice problems in class followed by assignment 1, and then we will take a quiz. Next up you’ll need to watch three more podcasts as homework by the date announced in class: Force Podcast 4 – Introduction to Friction, Force Podcast 5 – Static Friction, and Force Podcast 6 – Kinetic Friction. Following this we’ll do practice problems in class and assignment 2. Next week we’ll do a fun lab on friction. ***Remember to work with your lab partner to write your lab report for the projectiles lab. This is due Wednesday, November 7. Documents that will help you are: the Lab Report Writing Guide, Human Cannonball Projectiles Lab, and Human Cannonball Projectiles Lab Rubric. *** Remember that you must write using Google docs/Google Drive and share the document with me at [email protected]. (Note: I use this account for documents only and do not use this account for email.) Uploads to TurnItIn.com are due on Friday, November 9 @ 3:00. (If you need the information for TurnItIn.com, please refer to the blog post from September 10, 2012.)
This week in astronomy: We will take the unit three test over the moon. Please refer to the unit three study guide and the podcasts on the unit 3 page. Also the bizarre but helpful video we saw in class will help (if you watch past the weird stuff to get to the animation of the moon orbiting Earth): Ask an Astronomer: Why Does the Moon Look Like it Changes? The Astronomy Unit 3 – Homework Questions are due the day of the test. In addition, the Astronomy Unit 2 – Outdoor Lab is due on Wednesday. You can begin the Astronomy Unit 3 – Outdoor Lab at any time now, but you’ll need some cloudless nights, so let’s make the due date realistic: November 26 (the day after Thanksgiving break.) Our next topic is eclipses, which are quite cool and beautiful! We’ll be working through notes and activities with eclipses this week.
Cool Science of the Week: Did you know that NASA has a webpage totally dedicated to satellite images of big storms? With the unfortunate presence of Hurricane Sandy, it may be of interest to you to check out what NASA’s images have to offer.
