Week 3 Snow Delay

So despite there being a 2 hour delay and 2 hour early dismissal, my block was still scheduled to go its normal time and length for when it occurs on Wednesday.  Well let's complicate that fact with there was a cancellation on Friday due to snow.  The school did not rotate their days but instead waited, so I'm on the wrong week.  I did stay and observe the kids.  I did actually get inspired to write out a lab by one of them playing around with their current activity which was taking prisms and refracting lights. One took off her glasses and placed it in the focused beams.  You could see the multiple slit light focusing into one single beam.  I don't think she realized that this would be the answer to the homework she got later in the day.  But my inspiration would be to take a variety of lens/prescriptions of whatever is in the room (have spares or my own pairs as back up) and do the same thing.  Have the students explain why and what it is helping to correct.  So I'll get back to the questions when they are my group and try a double post later on since I already know the answer to the upcoming week's question.  

Pendulums

A performer is was winging on the trapeze at the circus. It takes 5.2 seconds for him to complete one swing.  Another performer jumps on what's happens?

It goes faster.  F=ma.  Or 1/2mv^2.  Increasing mass should increase potential energy at the start.  Therefore leading to increased velocity which means less time.

My personal experience is that when on a swing, the more effort or work I undertake ie pumps the legs the higher and faster I can go.  The other I can't share due to audience possible lay seeing it.

100 years ago clocks were the most important thing.

Two will go through a period faster than a single.

Hooks law.  Wave functions.  Angular momentum.  Monkeys make for terrible models for this sort of phenomena.

My prediction is you gain 1.5 per doubling of mass.

9 per 10 seconds for 1 washer.

Predictions: For 2 washers is 13.5, 3 washers is 18, and 4 washers would be 22.5 oscillations.

I was wrong.  They were the same.  I put too much " faith" in the mass.  Thinking on it hook's law is mass independent but totally dependent on positional changes.

Material of what makes the "string".  Do different materials swing differently.  Is there an angle that is not 180 degree flight path that is faster than the others?

Week 2 Post Practicum Brain Spewing

Same block different day.  Full period this time and I got to see the power/utility of the block scheduling   It was interesting to note the use of time.  I found it interesting that he chose to give some students (one third of the class) the laboratory activity seemingly random (middle two rows).  It was then up to those kids to go find two partners.  They had done a similar activity since I had last seen them.  They are now on a new unit of optics/waves.  They were working with concave and convex mirrors, tracing lines and seeing how they reflected off.  This took approximately 20 minutes or so.  I was able to talk with each of about half of the kids and started asking them how they liked this activity and what they learned more.  Most seemed to say that they would love doing things like this all day.  One said she could learn it no matter what.  

Getting to this weeks burning questions, my cooperating teacher has pretty much total freedom to go with whatever he wants when he wants to teach it.  He is the only teacher in the school for this particular grade and class.  That said, I did learn the previous week that he has it grouped into several 3-6 week units.  Most of March will be waves/light with some optics.  April through the end of the year will be things related to chemistry.  Each week has a specific focus.  He has been doing this for several years.  He started with the text book, and expanded out eventually leaving it behind so the text books are now all on a shelf in the back of the room.  He developed experiments and activities based on the equipment he had inherited when starting the job.  Everything today is now been developed by him and used for at least a couple of years.  As to standards, since this was originally designed from the text book which probably were in line with the old standards, he probably is covering some.  He just isn't going out of his way to determine which standards are being met on a given particular lesson instead making sure they get a mix of things covering a broad spectrum of physical science.  

Article I: Large Asteroid Crater found in my home town

It is always interesting when something happens in a place you were born, lived a significant portion of your life or have some sort of connection.  Essentially tests are being run to see if this could be the 184th confirmed time a solid rock impacted the earth and made some big hole in the ground in a story originally from the Washington Post. The crater is approximately 3.5 miles wide and dates back to approximately 470-490 million years ago.  And it shows there was something in Decorah before some one put up a web cam on some bald eagles.  

This is a wonderful opportunity to teach children about several things.   I learned things just by reading the article.  There was believed to be a large collision in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter in which several of the other 183 craters came from.

We can learn about geology and the various rock layers and formations.  I know from growing up there Decorah is primarily a limestone bed that was formed by a prehistoric sea (as is most of Iowa).  The ocean/sea would've been receding, gone or vaporized by the time of this collision.  So there is the opportunity to learn about plate tectonics  geologic time scale, and changes over time both globally and locally.

Furthering geology and even chemistry, this alleged crater was discovered by identifying quartz that formed due to impact.  By learning what chemicals are in rocks we can learn ways to identify things and how to design tests to use gross estimates on how to determine if rock is say limestone versus marble or volcanic or some other sedimentary process.

The biggest stretch is that because of the prehistoric ocean, we can learn about evolution in biology.  How certain forms that emerged from the precambrian and this time reappear through out all of life today.  How great periods of time gradual changes add up.  How extinction and respeciation or new speciation occur.  

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Week 1: The Adventure Begins

I'm going to try to keep everything anonymous from school to teacher and especially students.  Although a good search, and some reasoning can pinpoint the school I don't have to confirm or deny anyone's supposition   

Getting ready for blast off....

So today was the first day at my practicum.  I was surprised how close this school was to where I live.  The sprawl of several cities has merged some of these small towns willing or unwillingly into a mini-metro with several distinct school districts nearly on top of one another.  This is different from many local school boundaries in the same district.  The second thing was this school is much more serious about security and access than several others I have visited and walked through in the past.  I had to be buzzed in, sign away my first born (it's ok with his behavior lately, no problems there j/k), and was escorted to the room by the secretary.  I also noticed not many kids in the hallways.  Only 3 or four (in a school of about 400 total kids in high school) wandering the halls but to and from the bathroom or their lockers.  The last thing I noticed before even entering/while entering the classroom is a strict no backpack policy.  My cooperating teacher informed me it was due to OSHA/fire marshall regulations about blocking the aisles/tripping hazards.  I also made a small mental note that in a "secured" building, if everyone is just carrying what they need for class, anyone with a backpack at times not ~8AM or ~3:30pm is fairly suspicious though.  

Finally I entered the room.  I saw that the room was divided into two not quite equal parts (about a 60/40 split).  The larger portion of the room was a lab area with benches coming off the walls.  The smaller half was  aligned with desks in fairly organized row, a central "teacher" bench in front of the classroom, a mounted projector, white board and a computer cart with my cooperating teacher's laptop.  There is a five minute transit time for students between their scheduled classes.  I was shown a seating chart.  I was explained that today was a presentation day for the near end of a unit on energy.  They were doing the histories and engineering of how certain power plants around the country.  

The cooperating teacher called for the students to sit down.  I should ask who set this up initially  but Google drive was used for the students to share their presentations.  Generally the students were questioned if they used an acronym and didn't define it in their presentation and would occasionally question if they did not explain.  It was unique to say the least because I think most presentations were done in under five minutes.  My cooperating teacher obviously knows his students and reminded them several times about the "allow" button for sharing at one point asking "Does anyone listen to me?"  (I tried not to laugh).  He obviously knows his students by this point in the semester (I asked).  There's some back and forth with some underlying history I didn't quite catch.  One thing I started to notice was there was more and more talking the closer to the lunch break, so I heard the quote, "Talk during a presentation and lose points".  It got quiet, but the obvious tattling began between presentations and all one student said in reply "He said no talking during, this is between" and the teacher confirmed.  

Today I learned about what period I don't want to teach: the one with lunch on the day of an early dismissal, especially when you have the "B" lunch.  The students were obviously anxious to go to lunch all day.  Then after returning from lunch they were anxious to leave early.  I think this was possibly great planing (or fortuitous accident) that I got to see these presentations today.  Instead of fighting their tendency to want to be elsewhere and give them something new to do, I saw letting them summarize what they have done.  In 2 weeks, when I return to this day on the blocks, I would like to see how it is different.

And the struggle begins....(Course if I pull the sword out I'm king off all the Brittons and my life gets easier)

Magnetism

1. What are some “real life” applications of magnetism?

High speed rail.  Magnets propel light passenger trains.

Cranes can use magnets to carry large magnetic pieces of equipment or scrap.  

Magnets are used practically daily in kitchens to hold things to refrigerators from grocery lists, reminder notes, money, and whatever else can be held.

MRI/NMR uses a giant magnet used to infer the spin states of hydrogen nuclei.  From this we gain information about structures in the body or chemical structures.

2. What experiences have you had with magnets in your life?

I've used refrigerator magnets.

My son's Thomas the Tank engines are held together by magnets.  We hold them up off the tracks in long chains and watch them spin and see who can make the longest trains.  

I'm the only chemist in the world who has possibly not used NMR but can read the structures from various NMR techniques.  

3. What ideas do you have about the science of magnets?

It involves the electron configuration of the d/f-orbitals and which are paired in the same spin state and which are not (electronic configuration); this is where the term rare earth magnets come from.  It also is directly related to electricity in that it produces a field in which it may act in attractive way to things that are similarly charged.  It is considered an energy form, and we see certain wave lengths that are emitted as visible light.  

4. In the Mickey Mouse Video it says, “Well, metal does stick to magnets”?

What do you think? Will a magnet stick to these materials?
Material	Prediction	Why?
Granite	No	Lacking the right chemical make up
Aluminum	No	Thing electronic configuration is wrong
Glass	No	Silicon therefore not metalic in origin
Iron/Steel	Yes	Correct electronic configureation
Fiberboard	No	Not metallic/organic in origin
Copper	No	Think the electronic configuration is wrong
Circuit Board	Hesitant yes	Depends on "charged" and substance
Tin	Yes	Correct electronic configureation
Cardboard	No	Not metallic/organic in origin
Wood	no	Not metallic/organic in origin
Lead	Yes
Mirror	Antique ones yes, new no	Correct electronic configureation (due to lead) No lead
Plastic	No	Not metallic/organic in origin
Foam	No	Not metallic/organic in origin