Strategies, successes and resources for “Explore” stage

[admin]

In the For You To Do, students are meant to “Explore” the phenomena of the activity, making careful observations and drawing some conclusions about what is at work. What successes did you have in facilitating this? Did you develop or locate any resources you would like to share with other teachers?

[Dan Wood]

When we did this in our lab with teachers, I did not  understand why we did not use a bathroom scale to measure the force the wall pushing me forward.

[Mark Klawiter]

I've got a picture of Ryan Longwell's field goal being blocked by Bryan Robinson of the Chicago Bears...I'll digitize and post it when I get back to the cheesehead state...

The study of this event allows students to determine the angle of the kick after making a few fundamental assumptions.  

[Pete Flores]

I've got a picture of Ryan Longwell's field goal being blocked by Bryan Robinson of the Chicago Bears...I'll digitize and post it when I get back to the cheesehead state...

The study of this event allows students to determine the angle of the kick after making a few fundamental assumptions.  

Mark, I feel your pain......I think that most students will relate to that.

[Judy Scheffler]

I've got a picture of Ryan Longwell's field goal being blocked by Bryan Robinson of the Chicago Bears...I'll digitize and post it when I get back to the cheesehead state...

The study of this event allows students to determine the angle of the kick after making a few fundamental assumptions.  

Mark, I feel your pain......I think that most students will relate to that.

Pete, when did you shave the mustache?

[Scott Bartholomew]

Hello from the Boston area,

I found that activity five held a lot of challenges for my students.  I actually got the most mileage out of creating the chart of speeds and distances for the falling object.  Most of my students could not identify a meter stick or the units on it, so the activity provided an inquiry based approach to measuring.  As they calculated the distance for each 0.1 sec of the fall I asked them to show me that number on "the stick".  Next we gave the stick a name, and then we talked about converting meters to cm's.  Some students got the acceleration part out of the activity, but most were discovering the basic tools of measurement.

Matt A-W and I were successful with a journal question: Would you catch this (object of interest) if I drpped it from the top of three stairs?  How about if I dropped it from the third floor window?  Why, why not?

This helped to expose the misconceptions related to constant speed during a fall and total lack of understanding of what acceleration is and how it affects objects.

Later - Scott

[Donna Wolz]

My students didn't know how to correctly measure, either. I can't believe 9th graders can't use rulers. I had to take time to show them how to use the metersticks.

Along the line of catching an object from three stories----- What about the woman in Chicago who was hit (last Thursday) with a bottle that fell from a 13th floor windowsill?  It caused a dent the size of a golfball in her skull!! Needless to say, she was knocked out & they had to do surgery to relieve pressure on her brain. Last I heard, she didn't have feelings in her fingertips. I think that is a good item to share with students about the difference height makes. They don't really believe it does.