10-14 Tamayo

Today in class we got back our checked Acceleration vs. Time Graphing Packet and our Linear Motion Test Review. We turned in our lab reports, which were assigned to us last Friday. After we turned in our lab reports Mrs. Coats-Haan gave us our homework which included a reading printout with a separate question sheet and a question sheet for a cartoon located on page 50 in the Lab Manual. After this we were given a lab report that belonged to  someone else in our class. We were given a rubric for grading our classmate’s report. After peer grading the reports Mrs. Coats-Haan allowed us to take a class vote as to whether or not the reports should be counted for a grade. Our class voted not to count them for a grade. Mrs. Coats-Haan was very kind in still agreeing to grade them so we would know what we need to change for  the next time we have to create a lab report. The next thing we did in class was took a ruler with a penny on the edge of it and another penny on the edge of the table and used the ruler to shoot the penny off the table. This activity was supposed to show that an object moving horizontally from the same height as an object dropping straight down hit the ground at the same time. However, this was not easy to perfect but Jeff was able to do it pretty good. Next Mrs. Coats-Haan gave us a demonstration. Using a special car with a tube and a compressed she placed a ball in it. When she pushed the car she pulled the pin holding the spring releasing the ball into the air. The result being the ball was shot in to the air but came back down in the tube of the moving car. After the demonstration we watched our first Julius Sumner Miller video. Mrs. Coats-Haan was so excited to show us this video, she had to stop the video three times in the first fifteen seconds to explain a few things that we needed to know before watching the video such as the fact that we had to complete page 49 of our lab manual before during and after the video. After the video we had five minutes to get started on our homework then class ended.

Question of the Day: What was the point of the experiment with the penny and the ruler?

Answer: The point of the penny ruler experiment was to demonstrate that gravity has the same downward effect on objects moving horizontally and directly downward. Both pennies should have hit the ground at the same time even though one was moving horizontally and one was moving straight down.