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