Time |
Physics Syllabus |
Topics |
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1 |
Intro |
GOALS |
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set up group work routines, start to feel comfortable working in groups |
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Fermi Problems |
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Laser Water demo |
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3 |
Position, velocity, acceleration |
GOALS: |
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distinguish between position, velocity, acceleration, do simple calculations |
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walking graphs - logger pro graph matching |
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| do this more than once and also do it more times later on in the year | |
measure speed - cars, walking |
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Logger pro for falling objects - use graphing tools to help with analysis of x,v,a graphs. |
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2 |
forces and intertia |
GOAL: |
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must distinguish between force, inertia and velocity. Reason about moving objects using these concepts |
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inertia olympics |
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F=ma lab (not sure if I want to keep... maybe do modeling version?) |
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force vector lab ??? - maybe drop |
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diagnoser |
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Spring lab |
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Sticky Floor |
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| Use this as an intro to Excel which prepares them for the eggstream | |
1 |
momentum and 3rd law |
GOALS: |
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distinguish between momentum and and force, but know that momentum is changed by applying force. |
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Baloon rocket competition - who can make it the moon first, fastest? can you make it back alive? |
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momentum car - balls shooting out of back of car |
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| didn't do this | |
6 |
energy |
| only took 5 weeks | |
GOALS: |
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recognize many forms of energy |
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know that it is not created or destroyed, but changes forms |
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Eggstream |
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| good as-is | |
rube goldberg |
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| minor changes - more structure, more physics emphasis find outside judges - stanford engineers, principal, other teachers, econ class | |
Evaluate daily energy use, make poster to show energy use and what it would take in order to produce that energy, and what byproducts it would produce. |
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pulley lab - work and efficiency in multiple pulley systems (from faustine) |
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spring lab - relationship between F and x in a spring, calculating K from graph |
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heat lab |
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1 |
2-d motion (vectors, circular, projectile motion) |
| I added a little projectile motion, and made it 2 weeks (didn't do torque though) | |
GOALS: |
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Understand that a force acting perpendicular to the velocity will make an object turn in a circle, that force is the centripetal force |
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Understand that torqu increases when you move farther away from the fulcrum (large lever arm), but that you have to push for a farther distance) |
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Understand Projectile motion, be able to solve problems using equations of motion for projectiles |
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Babar and Ganesh mini lab (vector addition and decomposition, static forces) |
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making a mobile lab (?) |
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| didn't do | |
mobile performance assessment (?) |
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| didn't do | |
diagnoser? |
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| did do this | |
centripital force lab (ac = v^2/r) |
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| did this, got funky results, need very low friction thread | |
SUV rollover |
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| didn't do this | |
Projectile videos and video analysis using whiteboard and projector (drawing data points) |
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3 |
friction and thermo - gas laws?? |
| hit gas laws for 1-2 days, because should have gotten that in chem pretty well. | |
GOALS: |
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know that energy is conserved, but that no system can use all of it's energy to do work (some is always turned into random heat in the process - this is entropy and the first law combined) |
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understand coefficient of friction |
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LOL diagrams |
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Friciton Activity sequence (Lesson study) |
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| focussed on when we can or cannot ignore friction, rather than on coefficient. didn't talk about coefficient of friction. Could maybe slip it in by saying "when cefficient of friction is small, then it's ignorable" | |
who killed the electric car? - video (should make up some study questions that go along with the movie and relate to thermo) |
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heat capacity lab ?? - too much like chem? |
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efficiency and engines |
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5 |
electricity and circuits |
GOALS |
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Develop a model for current flow that incorporates resistance and voltge |
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understand resistance is proportional to wire length and inverseley proportional to circumference |
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Understand and build parallel and series circuits |
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electrostatics demos (simplify greatly though) |
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how a copy machine works |
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play dough resistance |
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wiring a house |
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4 |
waves and sound |
GOALS |
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undersand basic wave properties: wavelength, frequency, velocity |
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Understand resonance and harmonics |
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Apply knowledge to explaining a guitar |
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guitar/instrument |
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echo location |
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waves on springs |
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ruben's tube - pvc pipe with holes in the top. pump propane in and then play sound into the end of the tube. get standing waves of flame. sooo cool. |
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Sound and Fury - movie and socratic seminar |
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Electro Motive Brain Transducer 3000 |
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| needs some changes | |
1 |
magnetism |
3 |
Electromagnetism |
GOALS |
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Understand connection between moving charge and magnetic field |
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Creat a number of devices which utilize this relationship and |
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use current to move a magnet |
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use a moving magnet to create a current |
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speaker, microphone, motor |
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electric guitar |
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3 |
light and vision |
1 |
Nuclear and radioactive decay |
Other Projects (mostly long term) |
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learning study |
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| Only do it once? Take it more seriously? Class time? More strcuture? More help picking a topic? | |
breadth project |
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| Poor childrens books need to be adressed. Need help writing research papers (more support and structure, need to LEARN, not just do) Only 1 per year? More focus on choosing GOOD and INTERESTING topics that they will actually engage with More in-class time for feedback more rigid incremental deadline structure Online resources - build in to our own websites | |
big idea list? |
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| Should we reinstate this? | |
Notes |
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We are shooting to do a lab every week |
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Try to make our labs as inquiry based as possible (whatever that means) |
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Try to focus projects more on the physics connections and not on just "having fun" |
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More interpretation of graphs |
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Keeps graphing in labs |
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more focus on explaining graphs, explicitly TEACH how to interpret graph and have group discussions around this |
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add graphing interpretation on weekly/daily basis (SAT prep) |
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Memorize what a variety of curves look like - linear, 2nd power, inverse, |
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Reduce emphasis on tangent and derivatives?? |
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More articulation of goals throughout the year - combat "why are we doing this?" question |