Everyone: Intro to Light

Today we started talking about light and electromagnetic waves.

We watched this video and homework is Waves III.

Everyone: Standing Waves and Harmonics

There was no bellwork today. Instead, we jumped right into the several things we needed to get done.

1. Turn in Ranking Tasks: Waves from Monday
2. Complete Waves Lab II and turn it in.
3. Read pages 369-373 and take notes on page 372 (There is a pretty good overview of the info on page 272 here and here).
4. Complete Waves II, which is due Thursday (period 1 is excused from this).

Everyone: Wave Interference and Sound Waves

First we completed a bellwork about wave interference, during which we also watched some animations here and here.

Next we talked about sound waves. I tried using a Powerpoint for notes, which you can find here, but we also interspersed demonstrations with a tuning fork and tone generator that I can't reproduce here.

Homework tonight is Ranking Tasks: Waves.

Everyone: Speed of a Wave

 Today we did a little review on bellwork and learned the equation for the speed of a wave.

The honors classes then looked at how to find the origin of an earthquake.

Homework is Waves I, due Monday.

Everyone: Kinds of Waves

Today we named the two types of waves you created during your lab and defined them. We also talked about water waves and tsunamis. A page of nice wave animations by Daniel A. Russel can be found here. There is no homework.

Everyone: Waves

Today we introduced mechanical waves by completing a qualitative lab: Waves I.

I also passed out permission forms to those of you that we're randomly selected to participate in an alternative assessment. The first 90 students that return the form will participate, and 12 students that complete the test will be admitted to the KEYS Summer Internship.

Bellwork intro:

After the lab, we put names to some of the things you had investigated:

Welcome Back!

Welcome back from break, everyone! Today we have a guest speaker to give you information about the KEYS summer program at the University of Arizona. For more information, visit: KEYS.pharmacy.arizona.edu. This looks like a great opportunity and I hope you will apply.

For the rest of the period we talked about the science classes you have already taken and what is still required, both for high school graduation and for post-secondary educational options.

We will start new material for the semester with a qualitative wave lab on your block day.