Monday: Today we reviewed for exams. The do now was centered on some of the older topics from this semester, and then I answered questions that the students had from their homework and studying.
Homework:
Monday: Study for exam, bring in questions. Thermal energy remediations due tomorrow.
Sorry for getting behind last week! Had a blast at the movie festival, fine arts night and the dance though!
5 Days until exams start, 8 until science exam. Topics under pages! Be sure to study a little every night to get ready for exams!
Monday: Today we discussed our lab findings about Thermal Energy! We figured out some of the things that effect thermal energy, and we will be learning more tonight in homework and throughout the week. Quest over thermal energy on Friday!
Tuesday: Today we talked about calorimeters and specific heats! We practiced a couple of math problems and figured out how we could find out the number of calories in our food.
Wednesday: We took the opportunity today to practice using our new thermal energy equation to figure out how much energy is required to change the temperatures of varying objects by varying amounts. We also discussed what makes things good insulators of heat and what makes good conductors of heat.
Thursday: Today we review for our Thermal Energy Quest. We went over all kinds of information about thermal energy. Most requested review was over convection currents and the thermal energy math. Calorimeter questions came up a lot too.
Homework:
Monday: Read 6.1 and complete section review. Get tests signed (Magnetism).
Tuesday: Read 6.2 and complete section review.
Wednesday: Finish worksheet. Answers under pages “Heat WS Answers”
Thursday: Study
Friday: Complete 2nd Semester math practice worksheet 1 under pages.
Exam Countdown: 18 days to science exam. Topics to study under pages.
Monday: Today we reviewed for our magnetism test. The students seemed to need some reminding on what good studying looked like, so we took some time to discuss that. Good luck on tomorrow’s test!
Tuesday: Test
Wed-Fri: These days we worked on a lab with a few stations. All of these activities were designed to introduce us to some concepts in our next study of Thermal Energy. Lab reports on magnetism due Friday.
Homework:
Monday: Study, work on lab
Tuesday: none. work on lab
Wednesday: Finish lab questions for stations you completed, work on lab
Thursday: Finish lab
Friday: Finish lab questions for thermal energy.
24 Days until exams!!!
Monday: Today we discussed how generators and transformers work! We explained the concepts of electromagnetic induction in both of these devices and began to develop a better understanding of why and how electricity and magnetism are related.
Tuesday: Today we began work on our electromagnet lab. We are testing the effects of various factors on the strength of the magnetic fields of electromagnets. Students are working in groups to design their and carry out their experiments. They will then be writing up formal lab reports on their findings.
Wednesday: Today we continued work on our electromagnet lab. Student made a lot of progress today, many collecting most of their data during the class.
Thursday: This was our last day collecting data. As students finished up work, they were able to begin to write their formal lab reports, which are to be turned in next Friday.
Homework:
Monday: Ch 8 Review 15-17, 23, 26, 27. Test early next week (Mon or Tues)
Tuesday: Test next Tuesday! Get PR signed. Complete Part A (whole front page and part of back) for the online activity Faraday’s Electromagnet. The link in the post above will take you to the activity.
Wednesday: Part B of the online lab. Study for test, work on lab report.
Thursday: Part C of the online lab. Study for test, work on lab report.
Monday: Today we searched for magnets that aren’t magnets! We used compasses to try to find places where there were magnetic fields without any apparent magnet.
Tuesday: Today we discussed the results of our lab yesterday. Through this we discovered that electricity and magnetism have a close relationship. We then discussed the idea of electromagnets and what benefits they could have over permanent magnets.
Wednesday: Today we tested coils of wire with electricity running through them to see if they are indeed like magnets. We mapped out their magnetic fields and discovered that they do have a north and south pole!
Thursday: We continued our investigation of electromagnets today with more powerful solenoids, allowing us to see even more magnet-like behavior. We also played with the magnets and solenoids to discover that you could move a magnet inside of a coil of wire and make the electrons move — making electricity!
Homework:
Monday: Complete worksheet. Read 8.2 and complete section review.
Tuesday: (1st period read 8.2 and complete section review) Ch 8 rev 1-12
Wednesday: Ch 8 Rev 18-20 and 24
Thursday: None (but get test signed if you didn’t already)
Friday: Read 8.3 and complete section review
Monday: Today we began to explore magnets! The students completed a guided inquiry introduction to magnets and we discussed formally what most of us knew about magnets already. This gave us some new insights into old toys!
Tuesday: Green and Gold Day! Go run and work on movies!
Wednesday: Today we reviewed homework and working on mapping magnetic fields around magnets. We did this with a compass to get a better idea of how magnets work and interact with everything around them.
Thursday: Today we worked to finish our lab activities from yesterday concerning mapping magnetic fields. We then tried our hands at a new way to map magnetic fields (using iron filings). These two activities have helped us to appreciate how active a magnet is outside of itself, and how these forces interact with everything around the magnet.
Friday: I will be gone for the National Quiz Bowl Competition in Chicago. Students will be working on a worksheet to help them summarize what they learned from the activities that we’ve done in the past few days.
Homework:
Monday: Read 8.1 complete section review.
Tuesday: none
Wednesday: Complete at least 1 and 3 of worksheet 1.2
Thursday: Finish all worksheets
Friday: None, unless you were assigned extra work
Last full week of April »« Week Before Easter/Passover Break
Monday: Today we enjoyed a demonstration about charging by induction (sorry if your students ask to buy a fun fly stick). We then began to review for our test since tomorrow is a shorter day, including watching a video about what happens when a car is struck by lightening. Link to that video can be found under blogroll to the right.
Tuesday: Today we went over review questions in preparation for our test tomorrow over all things electricity!
Homework:
Monday: Finish practice test and come in tomorrow with review questions.
Tuesday: Study for test tomorrow.
Monday: Today I wasn’t here, so we finished kilowatt ours (available on youtube).
Tuesday: Today we took some time to review what we were learning just before spring break. We did this by working some problems from our homework and going over new conceptual questions in our do now — all over circuits of course!
Wednesday: Today we reviewed electrical power and energy. We also talked about calculating energy cost!
Thursday: We mostly reviewed homework today, practicing and mastering the calculations that we learned yesterday.
Friday: Today we applied our knowledge of circuit building to build a living room circuit that met certain exacting requirements. While some students struggled with the limit to the number of questions that they could ask, everyone seemed to have a great time and be able to work through designing these circuits!
Homework:
Monday: 1-7 of the electricity worksheet (found under pages with the title electricity practice)
Tuesday: Number 8 (all parts) from electricity practice worksheet
Wednesday: Finish packet from previous nights.
Thursday: Choose either your bedroom or your kitchen and calculate the total cost of the all of the electrical things you use for a month. Estimate the time per day that you use each item, look up its power rating, calculate energy use. Add up all energy usages to find total use and then calculate cost. According to my last energy bill, 1 kwh cost about $.16.
Friday: Complete at least one and a half pages of your Electricity practice test under pages.
Week Before Easter/Passover Break »« One week to Spring Break!
Monday: Today we had to take our physics placement tests for next year. These have no bearing on our grades this year or next, they are simply a tool for assessing which level of physics will best serve each student.
Tuesday: Today we began discussing all of the results from our various electricity labs and inquiry activities. We were discussing voltage relationships in both series and parallel circuits. We will continue this discussion tomorrow.
Wednesday: Today we finished our discussion of what we learned in our labs…and it turns out that we discovered Ohm’s Law all on our own! We talked about what kinds of experiments we had to do, and how we had to analyze the data in order to see this algebraic relationship between current, voltage and resistance.
Thursday: Today we practiced some Ohm’s law problems, practiced applying the things we’ve learned about electricity and went over homework questions.
Homework:
Monday: Hydropower formal lab reports due Friday. Tutorial on how to graph in excel (and make charts well) can be found under blogroll.
Tuesday: Ch 7 Rev 1-13. Work on lab reports due Friday. Quiz Friday over Ch 7.
Wednesday: Ch & rev 14-17, 21, 22. Study for Quiz on Friday, work on lab reports due Friday.
Thursday: Finish Lab Report. Study for Quiz.
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