“Elastic vs. Inelastic” Blog Post

Explain the difference between elastic and inelastic collisions and describe one of each that you have seen in your daily life.

“Elastic Collisions” Blog Post -

Which has greater momentum: a train at rest or a moving skateboard?  Explain why you picked the answer that you did.

"Phase Change" Blog Post

Describe a phase change you saw outside of class today.  DESCRIBE what you saw and EXPLAIN the physics behind it. Be sure to explain if heat energy added or removed, what phase the object changed from, what phase the object changed to, and what the name of that transition is called.

“Too Hot/Too Cold” Blog Post

DESCRIBE three things that heat up at different rates and EXPLAIN why you think they heat up at different rates.

“Doppler Radar” Blog Post

Research how doppler weather forecasts work.  Using what you know about the Doppler Effect and what you have learned online, write a summary of how waves are used to show what is happening in the weather.

Quarter 4 Starts Here

Don't make up assignments before this!

“Interference” Blog Post

Explain the difference between constructive and destructive interference.  Give an example of each in your daily life. They don’t have to be waves - just anything that interferes and makes something larger or interferes and make something smaller.

“Standing Waves” Blog Post

DESCRIBE the lab that we did in class today and EXPLAIN what you learned about waves from it.

“No Effect” Blog Post

Today you learned that amplitude of a wave does not affect the speed a wave travels, and yesterday you learned that mass and release angle do not affect the period of a pendulum.  Describe something in your life that you *think* should affect something else, but actually doesn’t.  Why do you think it should affect if? How do you know (or how have you learned) that it doesn’t?

“Simple Harmonic Motion” Blog Post

Describe how you would know if something is an example of simple harmonic motion.  Give three examples of simple harmonic motion that you have seen in your day today.

“Electricity Generator” Blog Post

Which type of generator are you most interested in? Using the internet and the notes from today, explain why you chose that generator, why you find it interesting, how it works, and why it is one of the better forms of electricity generation.  Also describe one bad thing about this form of electricity generation and why you think that drawback is not really a problem.

"Appliances" Blog Post

Find three appliances at home and take/post pictures of the electrical sticker - or post the information on it!
Sample from my water heater:

V=120V, P=1000W

Sample from my Wii converter (this has a voltage/power in and a different voltage/power out):

This one converts energy (input) from : V=120V and P=53W

to (output): V=12V and I=3.7A

Circuit Kit Lab Assignment

First - You will not need the lab sheet you have been given until you reach #4 and it tells you to fill in the lab sheet!

Next - hold down the Command button and tap the space bar - type "circuit" in the spotlight and see if you already have the Circuit Construction Kit downloaded onto your computer.  If you do, you can skip the first step and just open the file you have!

Now - go to this link and start the lab!

“Circuit Diagram” Blog Post

Write a blog post exploring the idea of symbols.  Why do we use these symbols for our circuit diagrams?  What are some things that using symbols makes it so much easier (and why)?  What are some thing that using symbols makes it so much harder to do (and why)?

For extra homework credit - EXPLAIN something new that you think it would help you to use symbols for.

“Pretzel Circuit” Blog Post

Write a blog post COMPLETELY describing today’s activity.  In your post be sure to EXPLAIN what we did, and what each item (the students, the pretzel bag, the pretzels) represented in an electrical circuit.

“No Wires World” Blog Post

You live in a world where electricity doesn’t need to flow through wires to light things up or make things work.  Write a paragraph explaining what you would name this world, EXPLAIN one cool thing you could do with electricity without wires, and EXPLAIN one crazy or horrible thing that could happen with electricity floating everywhere.

"Electricity So Far" Blog Post

Write and complete the following sentences:

• Electricity is...
• So far I learned...
• Electricity is ---- because ----
• I'm still confused about...
• I'm getting better at ...
• I have a question about....

"Electric Vocabulary" Blog Post

Write a short paragraph summarizing what you know about electricity so far. Be sure to use at least 6 of your vocabulary words that we have gotten so far: conductor,  insulator,  positive,  attract,  proton,  electron,  neutron,  negative,  repel and static electricity.

“Van de Graff” Blog Post

Today we played with a Van de Graff Generator.  Describe what the generator did (what you saw) and why it did it (the physics behind it).  For an extra point, come up with something that you would like to test on the Van de Graff Generator and explain what you think it would do! (The best ones may get to test it!)

"Insulators & Conductors" Blog Post

Think about your day and describe one  conductor and one insulator that you came in contact with.  For each one explain how you know it was an insulator (or conductor) and how it is different from the other item.

3rd Quarter! Don't Go Past This Post....

“Electric Light” Blog Post

Write a blog post completely describe today’s Light the Bulb activity, then explain why you think the light bulb lit up. (How do you think the electricity works to light it up?)

“Work vs. Power” Blog Post

Explain (in your own words) the difference between work and power.  Give an example showing work done with a lot of power and then with a little power.