Exploring Physics Class Summary 2/10/14

with Sally Zeiner

Making Observations

What is observation? What is a hypothesis? We began our first physics class by defining these two words. We practiced making observations of the world outside and then proposed some educated guesses about the things we observed. After making sure we understood those two very important parts of the scientific method we got to work! And it was fun!

We began by dropping two tennis balls at the same time and observing them as they fell and hit the ground. Every student had a turn dropping the tennis balls. Then we recorded our observations in our lab books, and worked in groups to drop different combinations of balls. Again, we recorded our results. The students work as a wonderful learning community, helping one another with their experiments and record keeping. 
After an hour of work, dropping, observing, and recording, the students had a chance to explore gravity using some other materials, such as the BluTrac and Chicky Boom. They had a lot of fun.

For next week!

Please work with your child this week to complete the orange/cotton ball drop, and answer the remaining questions in the lab book. We will discuss their results and answers next week.

Have a safe and warm week!