4/6/11

Yesterday in class, Mr. Finley had us think of everything we knew about speed. My group came up with the equation: rate multiplied by time equals distance or distance divided by time equals rate(velocity.) Then today we performed an experiment testing how fast we walked.
The first column is the number trial, the second column is the distance we walked, the thrid is the time it took to walk that distance, and the fourth is the speed in which we walked.

1 12 feet 3.19 3.76
2 12 feet 2.09 5.74
3 12 feet 3.06 3.92
4 12 feet 3.02 3.97
5 12 feet 2.67 4.94
6 12 feet 3.35 3.58
7 12 feet 2.61 4.60
8 12 feet 2.92 4.11
9 12 feet 2.80 4.29
10 12 feet 2.66 4.51
11 12 feet 3.67 3.27
12 12 feet 3.32 3.61
13 12 feet 3.38 3.55
14 12 feet 4.00 3.00
15 12 feet 3.14 3.82
16 12 feet 3.26 3.68
17 12 feet 2.94 4.08
18 12 feet 3.31 3.63
19 12 feet 3.09 3.88
20 12 feet 3.63 3.31

The average speed for our experiment was that we walked 3.96 feet per second. To make sure we had accurate results, we ran the test 20 times. If we ran the test one time our results may have been inaccurate, but now we know that our final average is an accurate number.

-JM

April 4th 2011

Geocentric


Heliocentric

Today in class we first continued to work on our simulations. For the group I was in, we finished discussing our answers. We had some disagreements but finally came to a conclusion. Then, Mr. Finley came over to our group to explain the next lesson. He told us to think about the following simulation. You are playing a board game in a car. Is the board game moving? Many would say no. We say no because to our eyes we see the board game staying still, but would it be moving to someone standing outside of the car? Yes, this idea is called a reference frame. What does this have to do with planets? When we look up at the moon, we see only one side. To us, we think the moon is perfectly still. This is not true. For a person standing on another part of the earth, their moon will look different then our moon. The only way we would be able to see movement of moon is if we were to stand on something other than the earth, such as the sun. Then, we would be able to see the moon move. Mr. Finley then told us more vocabulary.
Heliocentric model- Everything rotates around the sun
Geocentric model- Everything rotates around the earth
As you should know, we follow the heliocentric model. Scientists and astronomers have proven that the earth, and any other planets rotate around a sun. Then Mr. Finley told us to write a long paragraph explaining why people in history used to follow a geocentric model versus our heliocentric model? This is what we had for homework that night.

ZK

Lunar Phases!

For the first half of the class, we finished our Lunar Lab: Constructing the Idea of Moon Phases. Since only part of the class were able to finish the Lab in time to go over it, I will not be putting the answers up.

Check out this diagram if you don't understand it.





YZ

March 10

I missed my blog day on march 10. That day was the day after we pushed Mr. Finley's car. We went over the homework assigntment to start the period. The first answer were when the classmates pushed the car, the car sped up._.__.___.____. The second one was when nobody pushed the car, it moved at a constant rate.__.__.__.__.__. The third one was when Mr. Finley pushed the car, it slowed down, and then sped up. .________.______._____.____.___.__._.
After going over the homework, Connor sat on top of the cart while Josh pushed him. Josh easily pushed Connor. Then, Colleen sat on the cart next to connor. Josh had some difficulty pushing the two. Then, Kevin sat on the bottom of the cart. When Josh tried to push the cart, the cart didn't move. We concluded that mass was added each time another person was added so the cart didn't accelerate as much as when there was only one person.
Check out this website to help you understand this concept better-

http://www.thechemistryteacher.net/graphics/Sample_Activity.pdf
TR

First in class we went over homework:
Q1. Answer is A. Q2. answer is B. Q3. answer is C. Q4. answer is . Q5. answer is B. Q6. answr is A. Q7. answer is A. Q8. answer is D. Q9. answer is D. Q10. answer is A. Q11. answer is B. Q12. answer is A. We went over the homework by discussing it in our groups and then the whole class went over it.
Then we went over what we did on monday close to the end of class about how the moon controls earths tides in the ocean. Where every the moon is on the eastern or western hemosphere the tide will still be the same. When the sun and the moon are aline there is high tide. When the moon and sun aren't aline the tides are low. The moon has a greater force on earth because it is closer than the sun is.

- H.K.

Monday, March 28

We started class talking about pushing people. Mr. Finley made two people stand up and lean against each other, sort of like how you and a friend would make a house as a child. Unless they both pushed equally, the other person would begin to angel backwards.
After talking about what we just saw, we wrote three scenarios down.
-Jack and T.J. leaned against one another
-Finley punched a wall
-Finley pushed T.J.
We concluded that whenever you exert a force on something, it exerts the same force on you.

We then talked a bit about forces and Sir Issac Newton.
He had three laws of motion:
1. An object not moving stays not moving and an object moving continues moving at a constant rate unless an unbalanced force is exerted.
3. When things interact, they exert forces on another - equal in size and in opposite directions.
2. a=Fnet over m means the more force, the greater acceleration. More mass, slower acceleration.

After this, we got into the moon and the force it exerts on the earth. The tides are something big and controlled by the moon's force.

We drew a picture (you might now be able to read mine but I'll point them out).

The oval-like circle represents the tides, the round one the Earth. The arrow is a force diagram of the moon on Earth.
We noted that whatever happens on one side happens on the other.

I would have more, but I ran out of paper in my notebook and used a sheet of scrap paper.

-EL

Thursday March 24

We started class by going over homework. We talked about the scientific names for the first day of the seasons. Winter's is the Winter Solstice. The winter solstice is when there is the shortest day of the year. The Summer's fist day is called the Summer Solstice. This is the longest day of the year. The first day of Fall is the Autimanal Equinox and the Spring's is the Vernal Equinox. The Equinoxs are the days when there is an equal amount of night and day.
After that we did an experiment where Colleen held a laser still and Mr.Finley turned the globe around. Before the earth was turned arouned the dot was on the Tropic of Cancer. When it was turned around it was on the Tropic of Capricorn because of the tilt. This showed where the sun is in the Winter and Summer. We also comncluded that there are no seasons in between the Tropics and even if there are there very mild.
After that we did an experiment with a cicle and a bowling ball where we removed a part of the circle and the bowling ball went straight which showed that if the sun disapeared the planets would just go staight.





TJ