Week 4

 

•  The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did

I was unable to make it to lab this week, but after taking with others in my class and reviewing the slides, the big question that was addressed in lab was: what affects how long a swing takes to go back and forth. Kind of how we worked with the slide question, everyone examined this question and created experiments. 

• A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture.

Lecture was a deeper analysis of the question from lab. We discussed the affects of a child on a swing, and went into further analysis of two factors: riders weight and the length of the chain. From this, we moved onto discussing how Newton's law related. We discussed how force and energy answer these questions. 

• Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading:

                            - What did you learn?

I learned a lot from this reading, especially the history about how these ideas were discovered and used to make the things that we use in everyday life. 

                            - What was most helpful?

I think that this entire chapter was extremely helpful in understanding more of the question discussed in lab about the swing. especially about the longer and shorter string explanation. 

                            - What do you need more information on?

I think that one thing that I would really like more information on is potential and kinetic energy. I think I have have benefited if there was a little bit more explanation about those. 

                            - What questions/concerns/comments do you have?

One comment that I have about the reading is how fun of a lesson it would be to bring into the classroom. I think that it could be a really engaging activity to examine the differences between swings, having one rope be shorter, etc...