How to study for a physics assessment

Ok, so if you check the course calendar, you'll see that you have your first assessment in physics coming up next week. How should you study? Read carefully for my step-by-step guide to demonstrating deep understanding

Big picture of what you're doing:

1. Get out your copy of the Major Concepts for Unit 2. Read these through, and circle anything that seems completely unfamiliar to you.
   
2. Remember the purpose of this assessment. I am looking to help you see how well you understand these ideas. You can help yourself tremendously, by figuring out, before the test, how well you understand these ideas and making sure you master them.
   
3. While you study, your job should be to find/create problems that test these major ideas, try them, and then trouble shoot your work until you master the concept.
   

Step by step of what you should do:

1. Get a bunch of blank sheets of white paper or graph paper (if you're making/interpreting graphs).
   
2. Copy problems that we've done in class, on homework, and on webassign onto a a sheet of paper (one problem per page). Don't copy your answer from class notes.
   
3. Try to figure out which of the Major concepts this problem is testing, and write that at the top of the page.
   
4. Solve the problem. Try to do it in as much detail as possible. If you get stuck, write out a sentence explaining what you don't understand. The check the solution, and finish the problem. Recopy this problem and put it back into your stack of problems you're working on.
   
5. Keep working through problems until you've successfully mastered one or more problems from each topic.
   
6. Check yourself for small errors, like omitting units, writing bogus numbers, calculating slope as x/t, etc. Make a note of these on the problem, and focus on not making this mistake the next time you solve a similar problem.
   
7. If you can't find a problem from your notes or homework, this is a sign your understanding of this topic is incomplete. You can find additional problems in the text, or online by googling for them. You can also email me.
   
8. If you get stuck on a problem or concept, you are welcome to email me or schedule some time during backwork or a free period. But I also encourage you to use the blog to help increase your understanding as well (see below).
   
9. When you're done, you should have a small booklet of 10-20 problems that clearly show mastery of each topic.
   
   In practice, this doesn't take nearly as much time as you might think. With four days between now and the assessment, you can spend 10-15 minutes working out problems for 5 concepts per night, and have covered all 15 concepts by Thursday night, giving you Thursday night to go back over any last remaining concepts you're slightly unclear on.
   
   

   Using the class blog to ace a physics test

   
   If you find yourself stuck on a particular concept or problem, I encourage you to use the class blog to help you find the answer. Just create a new post (label it "reflection") and describe your problem "I can't see how to solve problem 2.4," or "I don't know how to draw a position vs time graph from a velocity vs time graph." Doing so will do a number of things:
   
   
   
   1. Just explaining what you don't know will often lead to greater understanding.
      
   2. You writing about a problem will help your peers to these themselves on what they understand.
      
   3. You will be contributing to the class community, and this will positively impact your grade (both intangibly and tangibly).
      
   
   
   Likewise, if you know the answer to a question posted by a peer, I encourage you to comment and leave a response. This will positively influence your grade.
   
   More tips:
   
   1. The science of studying, from Study Hacks

August 31, 2009

Today we started class by discussing constant velocity and constant acceleration. The equation for constant velocity is X(T)=VT+Xo. Constant velocity is an object moving at a constant speed and direction. The equation for constant acceleration is Xf(T)=Xo+ViT+1/2AT^2. Constant acceleration is when an object's velocity is moving at a constant rate.
After we discussed constant velocity and acceleration, we divided up into groups and made constant position vs. time graphs and constant velocity vs. time graphs.
At the end of class, we worked on our motion detector lab. For homework, we are supposed to finish Homework 2B and work on Homework 2C. This homework has to do with measuring velocity and acceleration. The scribe for Tuesday is...Paxton.

All your excel problems solved

So by now, you've had a chance to get frustrated with excel, and wonder why such a powerful tool would be so difficult to use. Fear not. I've made the following quick (<4 minutes each) tutorial videos that should explain the basics of excel and get you back on track right away.

1. Basics (making the data table)


2. Graphing (making x vs t graph, and then making it pretty--labels, title, etc)

3. Linearizing (making x vs t^2 graph)

4. Double interval method (finding instantaneous velocity values and making graph).


If you still have questions, post a comment on this blog and we'll see if someone in the class has the answer.

ps. I created these videos in less than 30 minutes using the super awesome program jing. check it out!

The Big Bang Explained

Ever wonder what the big bang is all about? What a multiverse is? This 2 minute video gives a great explanation by physicist Janna Levin, who is also a fantastic author. She wrote How the Universe got is Spots, and the award wining fiction book, A Madman dreams of Turing Machines. Both are great, quirky reads.

Class notes for Friday, August 28

When class started on Friday, we reviewed homework 2b. Mr. Burk explained to us that the area in a velocity vs. time graph represents the displacement. THe slope in a velocity vs. time graph is the change in velocity over the change in time. THe change in velocity is found by subtracting the initial velocity from the final velocity.
We then talked briefly about the corrections policy. Mr. Burk asks that we generally turn in our corrections within a week. It is perfectly fine if you choose to not make corrections. Talk to Mr. Burk if you have any questions.
Next Mr. Burk talked about some of the big ideas from Wednesday's class. The position vs. time graph of the falling basketball made a parabola, while the grpah of position vs. time squared made a straight line. A square root of the position vs. time graph would have also made a straight line.
Mr. Burk spoke with us about the double interval method. The double interval method is used for estimating instanteneous velocity. You make a position vs. time data table and then find the change between those points. Average V=change in x/change in t. You want to make this as small as possible. The double interval method gets you a line closer than average velocity because you use two intervals instead of one.
After this we broke into groups and did the Understand the Motion Sensor lab. We will finish this lab during the next class. Our homework was to finish the last 2 pages of homeowork 2B, complete the weekly evaluation on webassign, reread 2.7, and do the basketball lab. Don't spend more than 10 minutes making the graph on excel. Email Mr. Burk if it takes you any longer. Monday's scribe will be.... Eliza.

mary elizabeth

The art of taking notes in science class

Have you wondered exactly how you should take notes in physics to achieve the deepest understanding? You're not the first to ask the question, and not surprisingly, the author of Study Hacks has a few things to say about the art of taking science notes.

Notice that this post talks about going over your notes, but not just re-reading them, instead, it suggests you work to recopy/add to your notes so that you can develop a set of notes that can re-teach you the material in 10 years.

This can be a LOT of work, and I would encourage you not to do this for everyday we take notes, but if there's a time when we're covering something that seems particularly difficult, it might be a good exercise to try to go back and recopy and improve your notes.

Here are a few more tips from a college professor of geology.

Beautiful time lapse of Persied Meteor shower

Sometimes, physics begins with just admiring the beauty of the world around us. Check out what you see if you spend a night taking photos of the sky during the Perseid meteor shower. To get a explanation of what you're looking at, check out the always great, Bad Astronomy. Be sure to click on the HD link to see this movie in all its glory.

Corrections Policy

Hi All,
Thanks again for a great class! I want to explain things a bit further on my offer of corrections.

In general, I will allow you to correct just about anything in this class. Under the following conditions:

1. You seriously should consider whether you need to do the corrections. I know this is hard, but you should ask yourself "am I doing this to raise my grade, or show I really understand an important idea?" If it's to raise your grade, I would suggest that you consider not doing corrections. You will have many, many grades in this class (more than 100 a semester, in all likelihood), and one 2/4 or even a 0/4 will have almost no effect on your final grade. Seeking perfection is a recipe for unhappiness and lack of sleep.
2. Ask yourself if you have time to do corrections. If you aren't getting 8.5 hours of sleep per night, or you're behind in something else, you probably should focus on those things first. They will have a bigger impact on your grades and happiness.

If you decide to do corrections, follow these rules:

1. Turn your corrections in within a week after the assignment (unless you make arrangements with me).
2. Re-do the ENTIRE assignment. Do not simply copy your old work--do it again, with fresh eyes.
3. When you get to parts that you missed, you should ALSO write an EXPLANATION OF WHAT YOU DID WRONG (this is essential for credit).
4. At the end of your assignment write a note specifically stating EVERYONE and EVERYTHING you collaborated with. You are forbidden from looking at another student's work if you are doing corrections. Omitting someone/something you collaborated with constitutes an honor violation.
5. Turn in both your old and new assignment. If it seems like you copied your old work, I might not give back all the points you missed.

That's it. I reserve the right to modify this policy for specific assignments, or rescind it altogether if it is being abused.

8/26/09 Physics Class

In class today, after we got back various old homeworks, we looked at a constant velocity model. The model showed two cars, A and B, both traveling at a constant velocity. Our task was to find the equation of each of the cars. The trick was remembering that the slope of a line is not simply y over x. Although this worked for car A because it went through the origin, it did not work for car B.
Next we discussed the graph of the falling basketball. We all knew that the graph was not a straigt line. Instead, the graph formed a parabola or a quadratic. We all knew that the equation of a parabola is y equals x squared. Mr. Burk asked us how we could prove that. This led to a discussion of the meaning of directly proportional. If a line is directly proportional it is straight and it passes through the origin. We realized that if the y-axis of a graph was position(x) and the x-axis was time squared and a line on the graph was directly proportional, it meant that position was a function of time squared. So to prove that position was a function of time squared in our lab, we squared all the original numbers and made a new graph to see if it formed a straight line. And..... it worked! This method is called linearization.

After that we took another look at our original graph. We had already agreed that the original graph was not a straight line. But when we zoomed in on certain time intervals that consisted of only 4 or 5 points, we noticed that they seemed to form a straight line. Mr. Burk even used a ruler to show us that the points really did make a straight line. We did this with points at the beginning of the graph and points at the end of the graph. The difference was, that the points at the end had a steeper slope than the points at the beginning. We concluded that over a small time interval, the position seems to follow the constant velocity model. At a later time the slope is steeper because the average velocity is greater. This is called instantaneous velocity. Our next discussion was, how do you find instantaneous velocity? You find the average velocity over a "small enough" time interval. How small is "small enough"? - As small as possible. We used the double interval method to do this. To find the instantaneous velocity of a point, simply find the average velocity of the point before it and the point after it. That concluded today's class.

Tomorrow's scribe: Mary Elizabeth

Link you need about reading the textbook

Tonight, part of your assignment is to watch a video of me describing how to read the text. This video is about 7 minutes long, and you should read along with your own paper while you're watching this.

If you read one thing today...

Make it this excellent post at study hacks about how to create a unsinkable organization system. Do this now as a 9th grader, and watch your grades soar through high school, college and beyond. It really is that simple.

8-25-09 Physics Class

Today, with our 2 hours of class, we learned many things that are going to better help us understand what we will do later this semester. First, Mr. Burk handed us back our Bogus Wkshts with our out of 2 grade. Next we talked about position/time graphs that was on the 2A HW. The homework showed us how to record what distance someone is going in and how fast through work on the paper. Then we got into the heart of the class; first thing was that we split up into groups of 3 and drew on our whiteboard how to graph a position/time graph of a car going at a constant rate. Then we expressed the same thing with and equation and words. THEN, if you were really good at that, you made a velocity/time graph of the car and an equation: v(t)=vo. Easy!

As a class we had two discussion questions: what is the meaning of slope in a v/t graph? and what is the meaning of area? The slope is the acceleration of the object and the area is the displacement because v times t is m/s times s which cancels out the seconds leaving you with m - displacement Thanks Joe.

The last part of class was deticated to the basketball/tickertape lab. In groups of 3 we wanted to see the acceleration and velocity of a falling basketball starting from about 6 ft. in the air. We recorded the basketball's position in incremints of 1/60th of a second and put it on an Excel Spreadsheet. Then we took it to the lab to make some final touches before turning in work and getting the HW and printed it out. That's it -- tomorrow's scribe is gonna be Sana.

also here are some pics of the lab:

(actually it's up top)

A physicist writes an opera!

The connections between science and art are too numerous to list, but this has to be one of the coolest and most unique I've seen. Lisa Randall, a physicist at Harvard who is researching extra dimensions and how gravity might be 'leaking' into hidden extra dimensions was asked to write a libretto (musical text) for a completely new opera. The video below features Professor Randall talking about her work. It's definitely worth watching.




You can read more about the opera here.

8-24-09 Scribe Post.

Today in Physics, we turned in our FCI worksheet and Bogus worksheet. We also went over the Bogus worksheet just discussing in general why everything was impossible. Afterward we worked on getting data for our Position vs. Time Graphs with a Ticker Timer and a Buggy in groups of three or four. Our Buggy was named "Gangsta Mobile". We created two sets of data. For the first we placed a meter stick down and put the buggy in a parrallel line next to it. We then gave each person in our a group a job. One person was the timer and the other people would markwhere the buggy was at after 1, 2, 3, 4, and, 5 seconds Then we turned on the buggy at the same time we started. Then the timer would call out the seconds when they occured and the markers would line up where the buggy was when the time was called. That way we could use time as a stable, independent, x variable and distance as a not as exact, dependent, y variable. Then we plotted both axis on graph paper and wrote an equation for the graph in a f(x)= mx + b format using units for the x value as well. The second graph was about attaching a piece of ticker tape to the buggy and putting the ticker tape under a ticker timer and turning both on and getting a strand of ticker tape with holes made by the ticker timer and being pulled along by the buggy. The ticker timer was 1/60th of a second so every six dots was 1 tenth of a second therfore we can see how far the car moves in one tenth of a second by measuring the distance betweeen six dots. Because the buggy is moving at a constant rate, the distance between the six remains the same for all dots on the paper. Then we created a graph for this experiment as well using the Guidelines given out by Mr. Burk. Everything we didn't finish with the graphs was for homework. Then we went into lockdown because a fugitive was on the run from the police and had escaped into the forest near our school. We were locked in our Physics Room for the rest of the third and fourth periods and spent time chilling and socializing with the Physics students of the class next to us. Finally they gave the all clear and the homework was Homework 2-A. Read 2.4, And finish the graphs. Next scribe is ... Gaston Quantz

Friday August 21, 2009

Today was the second day of class. We studided about the concept of motion and did the experiment with the toy car. We measured the distance and the time interval of the car moving across the table.

Next, we did the lab with the photo gate timer. We found that gate mode starts a timer each time something moves across the beam. In pulse mode, moving through the beam stopped the timer, so it is like a stopwatch. Pendulum mode started a timer and stopped the timer after crossing the beam twice. This mode is used to measure the time interval of how long it takes for a pendulum to create a full oscilation.

Lastly, we received a few handouts. One paper was the major concepts sheet for unit 2. Another was the Chapter 2 packet which we have to read by monday. Next was the bogus worksheet which is also due Monday. Homework 2A is due on Monday. Finally, The FCI/Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation is due Monday.

Something Funny.

I found this at the bottom of that Flat-World Advocate Website. It kind of proves that it is a total joke.

The Flat Earth Society is not in any way responsible for the failure of the French to repel the Germans at the Maginot Line during WWII. Nor is the Flat Earth Society responsible for the recent yeti sightings outside the Vatican, or for the unfortunate enslavement of the Nabisco Inc. factory employees by a rogue hamster insurrectionist group. Furthermore, we are not responsible for the loss of one or more of the following, which may possibly occur as the result of exposing one's self to the dogmatic and dangerously subversive statements made within: life, limb, vision, Francois Mitterand, hearing, taste, smell, touch, thumb, Aunt Mildred, citizenship, spleen, bedrock, cloves, I Love Lucy reruns, toaster, pine derby racer, toy duck, antelope, horseradish, prosthetic ankle, double-cheeseburger, tin foil, limestone, watermelon-scented air freshner, sanity, paprika, German to Pig Latin dictionary, dish towel, pet Chihuahua, pogo stick, Golf Digest subscription, floor tile, upper torso or halibut.

ScriWednesday, August 19 was the first day of physics class. The first thing we did was talk about how we know the world is round. Flat Earth Society members believe it to be flat, and we discussed how we know it is round. We wrote short essays on how we would convince a Flat Earth Society member that the world is round for homework.

We talked about how knowing something and understanding it are two different things. We filled out the front of a worksheet about something we understood. Everybody picked something that they understood well. Some of the things that people chose included sports and music. The worksheet asked questions such as what was the thing we understood, how did we come to understand it, and how did we know that we understood it. After we took a few minutes to do this, we divided into groups of three and shared with our partners the things that we understood. Each group wrote down their member's ideas on a whiteboard. After we finished, we put the whiteboards at the front of the room so that the class could take a look at what everybody had said.

Some important papers that we received on Wednesday included a syllabus, a sheet called Physics Concept Assessment Log, and one called General Instructions for Written Homework. We also received the first chapter of our reading. For homework, we wrote our flat earth essays, read chapter 1, and filled out the Course Policies Worksheet. We also became familiar with the course website, where there will be important messages and information for our class.

Top 10 ways to know the earth is not flat, and 10 more cool things about the earth

So you've just finished setting out write in your own words why the earth is not flat. This can be a challenging assignment, because you often want to say "because it's so", or "because of gravity, the seasons, or time zones." These are all good starts at the question, but take a moment and read this post for some comparison.

Do you notice that the author tries to build logical arguments to explain why the earth is not flat? Check out how the author carefully reasons through experiments that demonstrate the earth is round...

If the earth were flat, then two sticks at different locations would produce the same shadow. (premise)

But, when this experiment is carried out, the shadows aren't equal. (experiment and evidence)

because the shadows aren't the same, we conclude the earth is not flat. (conclusion)

This type of writing is the hallmark of scientific reasoning. It doesn't simply tell the reader what we know, it tells the reader how we know.

While you're at it, check out 10 things you don't know about the earth, a fascinating post from the fantastic bad astronomy blog.

And of course, the earth is round, but technically, it's an oblate spheriod.

Also, you might want to check out the flat earth society website, notice how their explanations are filled with scientific sounding terms and explanations, but most of this is just jargon intended to confuse the reader. Compare it to the 10 reasons the world is not flat essay, and you can clearly see the power of science and the value of clear scientific writing. Wikipedia also has a nice article on the flat earth society.

Finally, here's the link to the BBC story on the flat earth conference.

Idea for the day

How is this an appropriate metaphor for our (mine and your) relationship in this class? Comments welcome.

HT (hat tip)-Dan Meyer, teacher extraordinaire.

Get Ready for the Grand Adventure

Welcome to Honors Physics!



I hope that this image of the Saturn V (still today, 40 years later the world's most powerful rocket and complex machine) puts you in the right mindset for the adventure we're about to embark upon in this class. This class should be filled with thrilling moments, moments where you take risks, discover ideas you previously never knew, correct misconceptions you've been carrying around for years, and see the wonder of the world around you. Of course, like any astronaut will tell you, there are sure to be some scary moments from time to time, but with hard work, careful preparation, teamwork and communication, there are no limits to what we can accomplish. I'm thrilled to be your captain/mission control on this journey, so let's strap in and get started!