This Week in Physics
We will take our unit 4 test either on Monday or Tuesday as announced in your class period on Friday. Due on the day after you take the test, please take notes on unit 5’s PODCAST 1: The Law of Conservation of Momentum. We will go over this in class, do assignment 1, complete an informal lab activity, and take a quiz over goal set 1 as announced. If announced please take notes on PODCAST 2: Types of Collisions – The role of kinetic energy.

Cool Science of the Week
If you lived in the Arctic Circle you would spend part of the winter experiencing 24-hours of darkness with the sun never rising due to the tilt of the Earth. What would that be like? The New York Times decided to find out by interviewing people who live there.  (Hint: The picture below is moonlight during the DAY!)

This Week on Physics
We will complete assignment 3 and take a quiz over goal set 3 as announced. We will also complete the Law of Conservation of Mechanical Energy Experiment. When announced please take notes on PODCAST 4: Power. (This will be your favorite podcast of the year for reasons that will become apparent when you watch it.) We will complete the very brief assignment 4 and will then take the test over unit 4. Note: Your lab report for the Work-Energy Theorem Experiment is due as described in last week’s blog. (Note that 8th period’s due date is advanced to Wednesday.)

Cool Science of the Week
We’ve been discussing conservation of mechanical energy. A type of energy we don’t cover in class deals with the rotational motion of objects. This is called rotational kinetic energy, and a system’s initial mechanical energy can convert to rotational kinetic energy as well as straight-line (“translational”) kinetic energy. Engineers have put this concept to good use by creating rolling traffic barriers that take the translational kinetic energy of vehicles and convert some of it to the rotational kinetic energy of rolling barrels inside of the barriers. This helps slow the cars down more than rigid barriers. Pretty cool use of simple physics!

Welcome to our first five-day week of school since the week of December 11! (wow!) We will have guest speakers from the TEE program on Friday, so if you have an interest in TEE, be sure to make an extra effort to be in class on that day.

This Week in Physics

• We will discuss our results from the Work-Energy Theorem Experiment. The lab report will be due next week on Tuesday, January 30 at the start of your class period. You must share your Google document with me at my Gmail address, not my school email address. You must then upload your document to TurnItIn.com by 3:00 p.m. on the due date. The class ID is 16214937, and the password to join the class is Tesla.
• We will go over assignment 2 and will take a quiz over goal set 2 as announced. When announced please take notes on PODCAST 3: The Law of Conservation of Mechanical Energy.  We will do assignment 3 and will take a quiz over goal set 3 as announced (most likely next week.)

Cool Science of the Week
Who doesn’t love adorable sea turtles? They’re precious, right? Almost every species of sea turtle is also endangered, and their plight has hit a serious hurdle by way of climate change. The sex of a hatchling sea turtle depends on the temperature of the sand during incubation, and with rising global temperatures, 99% of the recently hatched green sea turtles are female! Obviously that’s a big problem for future generations of sea turtles. Sad!

“Not cool, dude!”

This will be a four-day week as we pause on Monday to pay respects to the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This Week on Physics
For Tuesday please complete Unit 4 assignment 1 and goal set 1. (Both are due at the start of class on Tuesday.) We will take a quiz over goal set 1 on Wednesday or Thursday, as announced in class. For Wednesday please take notes on PODCAST 2: Work-Energy Theorem. We will go over this and will then do assignment 2. Time-permitting we will perform the Work-Energy Theorem experiment. (If we don’t get to it this week, we will do it next week.)

Cool Science of the Week
I don’t know about you, but when it’s as cold outside as it’s been lately, I love to comfort myself with a nice, sugary, hot beverage. One chilly day in 2016 an engineer poured himself a latte and discovered a strange phenomenon: The latte formed striped layers! Being an engineer he used his scientific resources to figure out why and ultimately discovered that lattes can undergo a process that involves both fluid mechanics and thermodynamics, a process called double-diffusive convection. This process is similar to the one that creates the weird hot/cold layers that freak you out when you swim in Lake Erie!

Well, that was a lot of snow days! Obviously our schedule has shifted forward.

This Week in Physics
For WEDNESDAY please take notes on any parts of PODCAST 1: Introduction to Mechanical Energy that we didn’t cover in class on Tuesday (our first day back.) We will then do assignment 1 and, time permitting, take a quiz over goal set 1.

Happy New Year and welcome to the start of third quarter! (Can you believe it?)

This Week in Physics
For THURSDAY please take notes on any parts of PODCAST 1: Introduction to Mechanical Energy that we didn’t cover in class on Wednesday (our first day back.) We will then do assignment 1 and, time permitting, take a quiz over goal set 1.

Cool Science of the Week
Check out Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2017, including a better football helmet, a real-life Wonka-vator, a hijab for women athletes, Halo Top ice cream, AND the ubiquitous FIDGET SPINNER!

This post covers the remaining two weeks of second quarter as well as winter break.

Exams: The exam schedule is below. Our exam will cover all learning goals from units one through three. Your study guide is your learning goal packets. We will take our exam during our regular class period and not during our lab periods. All school policies regarding exam procedures apply. Please be sure to bring a working calculator and a number two pencil.

Click to enlarge, sisters and brothers!

These Weeks in Physics
First period: On 12/11 you will take notes on podcast 6 in class because there will be a sub. Assignment 6 will be due for homework on Tuesday. (It’s six questions, so chill. 🙂 ) On 12/12 we’ll go over all of this, do goal set 6, and will do a lab activity (no lab report.) On 12/12 we’ll take the unit test. That will leave us two days for exam review! That’s not like me, but you earned it with your efficiency! 🙂 Your physics homework over winter break is to relax, take care of yourself, and enjoy being with people you love!
Third period: On 12/11 you’ll do assignment 5 and goal set 5 in class with the sub. For 12/12 take notes at home on podcast 6 and finish assignment 5 and goal set 5 if you didn’t finish in class on 12/11. On 12/13 we’ll take the goal set 5 quiz and do assignment 6, squeezing in goal set 6 when we can. Your test will be Thursday or Friday. We’ll also fit in a lab activity (no lab report.) Your physics homework over winter break is to relax, take care of yourself and enjoy being with people you love!
Fourth/Fifth period: Oh, wait. I don’t have a class that period.
Sixth/Seventh period: What’s wrong with me? I don’t have a class this period, either. I should probably eat lunch.
Eighth/Ninth period: Assignment 5 is due on 12/11. We’ll go over this and will then do goal set 5 to get ready for a quiz on 12/12. For 12/12 please take notes on podcast 6. On 12/12 we’ll do assignment 6. Goal set 6 will be due for 12/13, and then we’ll do a little lab activity (no formal lab report.) Our unit test will be Thursday. You’ve also worked really efficiently, so we’ll be able to do a tiny bit of exam review on Friday. Come prepared with questions! Finally, your physics homework over winter break is to relax, take care of yourself and enjoy being with people you love!
Eleventh period: For 12/11 goal set 5 is due. We’ll also take a quiz over this goal set on this day. Podcast 6 is also due for 12/11. We’ll go over this in class and do assignment 6 in class. Goal set 6 will be due for 12/12, and then we can do a little review for the test that we will take on 12/13. On 12/14 we’ll do a small lab activity (no formal lab report) and will actually have a tiny bit of time for exam review on Friday. Come prepared with questions! Finally, your physics homework over winter break is to relax, take care of yourself and enjoy being with people you love!

Cool Science of These Weeks
Recently NASA’s Juno Mission provided us with AMAZING images of Jupiter’s surface unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. The high-def detail is just gorgeous. Check the pics out for yourself! Here’s just one! Look at the depth! The different colors come from different gases with different densities and concentrations, giving us the marbled appearance. See how some of the gasses are more transparent? You can see deeper through some of them! Cool! PLUS look at how the storms can go either counterclockwise or clockwise… right next to each other! That doesn’t happen on Earth! You can ask me why in class! I’d be happy to geek out about it!

Click image to enlrage, peeps!

There are two weeks remaining before semester exams, which run December 18-20. Please begin to study if you haven’t done so already. Also be sure to stay on top of all second quarter assignments and check PowerSchool regularly. No missing assignments will be accepted after December 13.

This Week in Physics
If you have not yet done so please be sure to take notes on  PODCAST 4: Newton’s Laws of Motion – First Law (Inertia) by Monday. Also for Monday only 3rd period and 8/9 period will take a quiz over elastic force (goal set 3). (The other classes have already taken the quiz.) We will do assignment 4 in class on Monday and Tuesday and will take a quiz over inertia and static equilibrium (goal set 4) as announced. When announced please take notes on PODCAST 5: Newton’s Laws of Motion – Second Law. We will work through many relevant practice problems and will complete assignment 5. Next week expect to do the final podcast and assignment from unit 3, perform an informal experiment regarding Newton’s second law, and take the unit 3 test.

LAB REPORTS: 1st period’s are due Tuesday, 11th period’s are due Wednesday, and 3rd and 8th/9th periods’ are due on Thursday. One hard copy is due per writing team at the start of the class period on the due date.The documents you will need are: Friction Lab, Lab Report Writing Guide, and Lab Report Rubric. Be sure to share your document with me at [email protected] and upload ONE copy of your document to TurnItIn.com by Thursday at 3:00.

Cool Science of the Week
The Earth is round, Kyrie. Don’t believe it? Here are easy tests you can do right here in Avon Lake to confirm it for yourself.

Happy Thanksgiving! This blog covers the week of and the week after Thanksgiving.

These Weeks in Physics
We will do  assignment 2, which covers friction, and our Friction Lab. There will be a formal lab report for the friction lab, and the due date will be one week after your class period completes the experiment. We will also take a quiz over friction (goal set 2) as announced. When announced please take notes on PODCAST 3: Elastic Force. We will do assignment 3 and take a quiz over elastic force (goal set 3) as announced and will likely also begin to cover PODCAST 4: Newton’s Laws of Motion – First Law (Inertia), so please take notes on that if announced. Looking ahead remember that semester exams are BEFORE winter break this year on December 18-20, so you might want to begin reviewing topics from earlier in the year to make your lives easier next month.

Cool Science of these Weeks
Meet the Balloonatics! This is the team of people who engineer the balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and believe it or not, they use PHYSICS…some of the same physics we’ve been learning, in fact! Here’s a short video from Science Friday that shows you how it’s done! Below the video I’ve included the science of cranberries, which I think is really cool.

The science of CRANBERRIES! I don’t know about you, but I LOVE to make homemade cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving. Did you know that cranberries are grown in BOGS? They’re grown on vines like strawberries, but they thrive if those vines are planted in wetlands. That’s cool. Also, 60% of our cranberries come from Wisconsin, while 25% come from Massachusetts, and if you have the chance to head out to those states, you can go to a cranberry farm (like we go to blueberry, raspberry, and strawberry farms here.) Here’s a little more information and a couple of awesome pictures.

This Week in Physics
On Monday we will finish discussing unit 3’s PODCAST 1: Net External Force, Weight, and Normal Force and will work on assignment 1. On the day after we finish assignment 1 we will take a quiz over goal set 1. Your notes from PODCAST 2: Friction are also due on that date. We will spend the rest of the week discussing friction, doing assignment 2 and exploring friction in the lab. (Note: Third period will not get to assignment 1 on Monday.)

A reminder: Your lab report over the Human Cannonball Projectiles Lab is due on Thursday at the start of class. One hard copy must be handed in at the start of your class period, and by 3:00 on that day one (and only one) copy must be uploaded to TurnItIn.com. You also must share your Google Doc with me as an editor at [email protected]. (Note: This is not my primary email address.) Additional documents you will need are the Lab Report Writing Guide and the Lab Report Rubric. You will need to create a scatterplot in Excel and copy-paste it (and your data tables) into your Google document. Here’s a handy video tutorial that shows how to format your data tables and make a scatterplot.

Cool Science of the Week
Can science and technology help counter climate change? This article identifies seven megatrends that provide some hope, including dramatically falling costs for generating energy from solar and wind sources, including making batteries that store more energy (increasing the efficiency of electric cars), and including …brace yourselves… lab-grown meat!