Grade 9 activity stream

[mgelbart]

Hello! Below you will find updates from VISST teachers regarding Grade 9 courses.

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[ledworthy]

English 9 students make predictions about plot and outcomes before going to see Julius Caesar at Bard on the Beach. Some are reading Marc Antony's famous speech.

[ledworthy]

Art Program: Anya Chibis is the artist who works with grades 8 and 9 students in our Art program this year. She brings great talent and and experience in many areas of art including her work as a documentary filmmaker. Currently we are working composition and applying new skills to a number of iterations of a collage.

[Philip-Freeman]

New Beginnings! A month (and a bit) of VISST

I am gently reminded by Mike that we should be keeping you informed about what is happening in our classes, and he is of course emphatically correct! It’s all too easy to let the day-to-day busyness of school forever push such important, but less immediate, things ‘to the back burner’. So, here we are… a month into the new year!

As someone with many years of experience in the public system I am still adjusting to some of the realities of a smaller school with different basic structures. But I am loving my students, colleagues, and classes. Let me take you on a quick tour of the courses I’m teaching, starting with the grade 9s (there’s a bit on the grade 10s at the end if you want to skip ahead, I’ll see you down in the ADST/Robotics section!)

Grade 9: Science, Math, and ADST

You can tell that the grade 9’s see a lot of me! I am sure there are some who get tired of my face, but the positive side is that it is possible to integrate across the different areas much more easily, something I have taken advantage of and hope to exploit further.

Science 10

One problem with the junior science courses (8,9,10) is that they have a tendency to be broken up into separate pieces… biology, chemistry, physics (sometimes some geology or astronomy). Since I strongly feel that knowledge is a whole, and that things are understood best when they connect to make a coherent picture, I usually try to find a thread to link topics. For science 10 I have chosen to frame the course using narrative… in particular Science 10 is “The Story of You” in four ‘chapters’ (with an introduction and afterword): Introduction: Different types of explanation, Nature of Science Chapter 1: “Begin at the beginning” (Importance of creation stories, Astronomy and Cosmology and how we figured out what we know about the larger universe) Chapter 2: “Making it so” (Energy and its nature and links to cosmology, conservation of energy, sources of energy, tracking energy flow and calculations involving energy) Chapter 3: “It’s a matter of chemistry” (Atoms and molecules from an energy perspective, bonds and compounds, chemical drama (reactions), organic molecules and looking ahead at biochemistry) Chapter 4: “Life as we know it” (Proteins and enzymes as molecular machines, DNA and the central ideas of cell biology, function and anatomy of the cell, genetics at a cellular and organism level, evolution and complexity) Afterword: Where do we go from here? Branches and applications of Science, Careers in Science.

(From the student’s first lab… using spectra to learn how we can obtain so much information about stars from just their light)

(Students use elastics and washers to model the expansion of the universe)

Math 10

To a physicist such as myself Math is a physics ‘spin-off’, which is not to say it is in any way ‘less’. But I do take as a starting point the connection between describing the world and the abstract beauty of math. Students do math labs to apply what we are learning about to real world problems, as well as continuing the excellent VISST tradition of “math appreciation days”! Most topic areas include extensions, often into computer science or related fields.

(Students measure the height of a stack of chairs while learning about arithmetic sequences)

Our general topics are here (broken into ‘chapters’ by colour in this case):

1. Patterns and sequences (the thing we’re too good at)
2. Arithmetic sequences (and how the computer revolution almost happened a hundred years before):
3. Linear functions (changing the meaning of ‘number’)
4. Functions and relations (inputs and outputs)
5. Powers (literally taking it to the next level!)
6. Prime factorization (and why the men in black will come for you if you’re too good at math)
7. Polynomial functions (curve fitting, approximation)
8. Multiplication (of polynomial functions and more)
9. Factoring (just when you thought it was safe!)
10. Systems (and why the US Government shut down it’s own research corporation)
11. Trigonometry (Using the power of triangles… to describe circles??)
12. Looking Beyond!

Students have just written their first major exam (on the topics 1-4) and we will be looking at prime factorization (and links to encryption) next. They have also used the math they learned in science (for the analysis of the first lab which involved calibrating a spectrometer using a linear function) and in their first math lab, which we did combined with the science 8 class (the grade 9s helping the 8s to understand the use of graphing and linear equations to describe results in science).

Combined 9/10 Class - ADST/Robotics

The 9s and 10s are together for this applied class, learning about electronics, programming, and more.y We are starting with the basics of electric circuits, and the students learned about series and parallel arrangements, switches, and basic components… and since have been working on a project applying these ideas in wiring a model house! The students turn a cardboard box into a model house, wiring it with lights and switches, an outlet, and potentially other devices.

(students at work in ADST class)

I like this project because it includes all the aspects of ADST, Applied Design, Skill, and Technology – and creative art as well! Students are being highly creative in designing their houses (and good design, including logical placement of lights and switches, is important), as well as getting a much better understanding of how switches and household circuits work than diagrams on paper could provide. The project will continue for another couple of weeks (I’ll try to update with pictures of some of the finished masterpieces)! Following this we’ll look at voltage dividers, breadboards and LEDs (adjustable colour LED), Logic circuits (reaction time game), Microcontroller with the Raspberry Pi Zero), sensor design and calibration (designing a basic controller/graphics tablet), (design of a game or detector,) and eventually setting the students free to designing projectsof their own devising! The ADST course runs all year, so this all proceeds in fairly easy stages, but there are some cool projects on the way I hope!

Overall Impressions so far!

I started the school year with quite positive impressions of VISST, its staff and its students. After a month I am pleased to say my impressions are even more positive. While I certainly feel there are challenges the school is a vibrant place with motivated students and deeply caring and extremely knowledgeable teachers (and some of the best administration I’ve deal with in almost three decades of teaching). I’m excited to be a part of this evolving and growing school, and to work with an excellent group of people, both as students and colleagues. If you want to discuss any of this, or have concerns, you can reach me through the school email at Philip@VISST.ca

[ledworthy]

Today in art class we went to the beach to create cyanotype art. The sunlight is needed to develop the pictures. Photos below!

[ledworthy]

Students stay late and work on ADST projects!

[ledworthy]

It is quiet in the grade nine class as students write. Today it is an opinion essay based on something meaningful to them individually. This is a writing sample that will let me know what these writers still need to learn and practice. It will inform my teaching on essay writing later in November.

[mgelbart]

Yesterday we held a session of math appreciation jointly with the Grade 9s and 10s, investigating the perimeter and area of polygons created on a "geoboard", which is a board of pegs that can be enclosed with rubber bands:

We investigated Pick's Theorem, which can predict the area of a geoboard polygon based on only the number of pegs around and inside the shape.

[PalomaCor]

In PHE, we have been getting outside a lot and making the most of the sunny days while they are around. The students have been playing ultimate frisbee, kickball, volleyball, and lots of mini games. We have also started doing weekly runs, building up from 8 minutes, to 9 minutes, and we will be reaching 10 minutes in the next weeks. It's great to see that the students' endurance has improved in the past year, as there used to be more huffing and puffing and more stopping, whereas now the students can sustain this level of cardio. Some students who were not as active outside of school have started doing workouts at home and going for runs - it makes me happy to see the students taking care of their health!

[ledworthy]

Grade 9 students made ink using natural ingredients.

[ledworthy]

Grade 9 Humanities

[ledworthy]

Students are working towards developing strong study group skills. These students were preparing for a science test and reached out to a grade 10 student for help in solving a difficult practice question.

Participation in study groups is one of the strategies we're using in English/Socials Studies as a way to enhance understanding in content area subjects.

[ledworthy]

[PalomaCor]

We enjoyed the nice fall weather at the park for PHE before the rain started.

[ledworthy]

Art 9 Tiffany Wan from Mellow Clay Studio is here today leading a clay workshop.

[ledworthy]

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[yhuangteacher]

Here is the first Math 10 post from Erica! On Monday, we played with the Marbles Slides activity in Desmos (an online graphing calculator and math learning platform). Applying what they learned about linear functions, students had to adjust the steepness (coefficient), height (constant term), and length (domain) of a slide (an equation of a line) to make sure their marbles could hit all the stars.

There were some very creative solutions! For example:

We also did some group problem-solving together and reviewed concepts in the polynomials unit this week. I've enjoyed working with the grade 9s very much so far, and I look forward to getting to know the students better!

[mgelbart]

Today in a joint grade 9/10 math appreciation class we explored different kinds of symmetry (reflection, rotational, translational) by trying to mimic a partner. We explored questions like what positions could the partner mimic with multiple types of symmetry (e.g. reflection and 180 degree rotation). It was nice to be able to move around a bit during math class!

[ledworthy]

Students created a book list of 5 fiction and 5 nonfiction books they have reviewed and would like to read. We caught the bus to the downtown library and everyone came back with 1 or more books. It's a great library to explore. Students did serious book searches and only had time for a quick glimpse of the outdoor area on the 9th floor.

[yhuangteacher]

In the past few weeks in math, we reviewed concepts in Unit 2, such as exponent laws and polynomials, and we started on the topic of solving systems of equations in Unit 3. Students also worked on a project in Desmos, showcasing what they know about functions to create cool Math art!

Have a wonderful winter break!

[Philip-Freeman]

With apologies for being slow to post, here is an update on some of the things we've been up to in October and November!

ADST 9/10 There’s been quite a range of activity in ADST after the house wiring project! Having struggled with physical wiring, most of the students quickly learned to appreciate using breadboards instead of loose wire (fun fact… they are called breadboards because the first versions were literally bread boards withs screws in them!) Using the breadboards, students have learned about using switches and LEDs before moving on to potentiometers and how they work. They use a voltage dividers as a control (including making a tunable coloured LED using three potentiometers).

We then studied logic circuits and gates, and how such logic gates are used to make the elements of a computer, including comparison and memory (latches).

Finally we put all these elements together to create (and refine) a simple race game / game buzzer, first using simulation software (Tinkercad from Autodesk):

And then in real life:

Although if you look at the schematic you can tell that “simple” is relative!

In the new year we will take another step as the students move to using a microcontroller, specifically the Raspberry Pi Pico. I don’t know if any of the parents are of sufficient vintage to be blown away by where things have gone, but this chip combines sophisticated analog and digital I/O with a Dual core processor and 2 Mb of memory… for under $10 each.

If moving from physical wiring to breadboards made things simpler and more powerful, the microcontroller should be another step up. We will begin by re-creating some of the projects we did on the breadboards, to get started with controlling devices using Python and to see how much easier working in software is to working in hardware (though we will also see why none-the-less hardware solutions are very important in the real world!)

Although I have worked in instrumentation design during my time in research, I am still learning about teaching this and the many challenges faced by the students! We are being patient with each other and learning a fair bit I think! Our students are at a wide range of backgrounds, but even those with significant prior knowledge are finding many things to learn in this process. ADST is a full year class, and in the new year we will explore how sensors work and design and calibrate our own, as well as learning more about using these microcontrollers and python programming. In the last months of the course the students will design their own projects, addressing an interest they have or a need they see around them! It’s never too early to start thinking about this, so I encourage you to encourage them to look at things through an engineering lens!

[Philip-Freeman]

Science 10 We have completed two units/chapters in Science 10 since I last checked in (sorry again!). Let's look at each!

"Making it So: Energy" Physics is my area of expertise, so there was a lot we could do here! Beginning of course with where we left off our previous chapter, with Cosmology and energy sources. Our main focus in this unit was on energy and how it moves around, using a variety of tools to conceptualize this, working up to extending these into detailed calculations:

The students examined this in the real world using video analysis software and spreadsheets to examine the energy transformations as a block rolled down a ramp:

"A Matter of Chemistry" I often refer to our units in science as chapters, not chapters in a textbook, but chapters in a story. If this conveys itself in my teaching at all it is in the transitions between chapters, where I try to convey the inter-connections between what we have learned and what we will look at next (I am not always as success at this as I imagine). So we can understand chemistry by recognising the origin of elements in stars (and how this explains the different frequencies of isotopes on Earth) and the role energy plays in chemical reactions. In our main energy lab we used a variety of chemicals in "spot plates", allowing the students to see a wide range of chemical reactions in the various combinations of five inorganic compounds:

An emphasis here has been on the various tools for understanding how atoms bond, such as Lewis dot diagrams, and the limitations of these representations. With this in mind, students have learned to describe both inorganic and simple organic compounds and to identify and balance equations involving their reactions.

The importance and complexity of organic chemistry and biochemistry is our bridge into our final unit -- looking at the tiny molecular robots that make cells work and how complex proteins that accomplish tasks in the cell are formed. We will begin the new year looking at genes as the codes for these 'robots' and how this explains heredity.

Science Project The other major undertaking, now and through the end of the course, is the students' major project. They have now identified a question to investigate and a methodology that should give them real data to analyize. If it is possible it is ideal if they can do some work on this project over the holiday! This way any problems that arise can be addressed and they can start the new year with their data collection either complete or well begun.

We wrapped up our chemistry unit with a rather oldfashioned chemistry activity -- making chemical gardens! You have already received an email explaining these, and perhaps have seen their garden, but here are a few photos of the works in progress!

[ledworthy]

In an Art and English related assignment, students are creating a video portrait of someone they have chosen to interview. You can see the assignment created by Anya Chibis here

[PalomaCor]

For PHE, we have been playing soccer outside and doing exercises indoors. It's been great to see students' exercise form and strength grow in the past year - I keep trying to encourage them to stay active outside of school and it sounds like some students are starting to incorporate this in their lives. Next semester, the students will have one long block of PHE per week, and I am organizing some field trips for us, including snowshoeing, ice skating and swimming. Given we will only have PHE once a week, I will have students make a plan for how they will stay active on the other days and help them follow up on this.

On the first day of snow, we went outside for 10 minutes, and some students decided to test their cold tolerance by going out in their tshirts. They looked cold but happy!

[yhuangteacher]

In Math 10, we have just wrapped up with the last topic, which is trigonometry. Last week, we did a math lab where students applied what they learned to estimate the height of the classroom. Students worked in groups and constructed a simple version of clinometers, which can be used to measure the angle of elevation.

I also challenged the students to get creative and find other ways to estimate the height of room. One of my favourite solutions was from a group that took a picture of a classmate and found the ratio of the student's height to the classroom height in the picture. Excellent use of proportional reasoning!

It has been a great pleasure teaching the grade 9s. Best of luck to everyone next semester!

[yhuangteacher]

Welcome to Mandarin 9/10! I am excited about learning Mandarin together with the students this semester. Tomorrow is the first day of the Lunar New Year, and the Mandarin 9/10 students participated in activities to celebrate the beginning of the Spring Festival. The class learned Chinese customs during the Spring Festival, tried New Year’s treats, and made New Year’s greeting cards. Earlier this week, students learned how to say 新年快乐 (xīnnián kuàilè/ Happy New Year) and all the 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac in Mandarin. They now know how to wish someone good luck in the Year of Dragon 龙年大吉 (lóngnián dàjí). Students also did calligraphy of characters 春 (chūn / Spring) and 福 (fú / good fortune) on red paper, which is an important Chinese tradition!

[mgelbart]

Welcome to Pre-calculus 11 Preview -- it has been lovely to reconnect with the Grade 9s after a semester! As mentioned over email a couple weeks ago, in this course we have a hopefully low pressure opportunity to explore Math 11 without needing to complete the course or finish a certain amount of content by a certain date. I hope to take the opportunity for more projects and individualized work (both review and enrichment as needed).

We are starting off the course with trigonometry because this will be used in physics, and we will likely move on to quadratics after that, again in connection with physics. The pre-calc 11 trigonometry builds on the content from last semester and takes us into the territory of non-right angle triangles via the cosine and sine laws. Today we explored various incorrect versions of the cosine law and discussed why they must not be right based on arguments of units, limiting behaviours, and intuition.

Really looking forward to this course!

[ledworthy]

Last year in career education we looked at the UBC application package and discovered that a personal essay was one of the requirements for application to an undergraduate program. A few students asked if we could to check it out more closely and this week they are writing a personal essay about themselves, answering the following questions: Who are you? How do others describe you? What is one thing you are proud of?

This should be easy! We're finding it more difficult than we thought as it feels like we are bragging a little as one student noted. It's been good though; students can see what is important to them now and more consciously consider ways to contribute to their communities in ways that are meaningful to them. We talked about the importance of contributing as a way to add good things to any community we belong to rather than volunteering as a means to an end. In these photos they are reading a partner's essay to support them in their thinking and writing about themselves.

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[Philip-Freeman]

Physics 11ᵢ In physics we use a subscript "i" to indicate an initial variable, so I tend to think of Physics 11 at VISST this year as Physics 11ᵢ -- it's an introduction and starting point! As such we are trying to build a careful foundation for our future studies, and hopefully learn some fun and useful skills and understandings. (a map of the major variables we'll deal with in the study of physics, our "dramatis personae")

We have started with the observation that in physics we do a very strange thing. We turn the world into numbers, simplifying it until we can describe it mathematically. Then we manipulate that mathematics to find out mathematical things. Then we translate that back and expect it to tell us something about the real world! And it does!! No wonder on early mathematician and physicist was almost arrested for witchcraft (Gerbert of Aurillac went on to become a pope, so I guess the charges didn't stick!). To help understand measurement the students first explored creating their own units and the strengths and weaknesses, then took a deep dive into measurement. We did a lab together to use measurement to describe the way that "water gems" absorbed water, as well as finding some interesting phenomena along the way! In a little glimpse of optics to come you can see that once they have absorbed water the beads become all but invisible... something we'll examine when we talk about index of refraction! (data from the class, showing a linear fit to the initial increase... we discussed why this cannot be a complete model)

We are now looking at vectors and how direction can be part of a measurement, and will be linking to the Math 11 trigonometry in a strong way as we examine how vectors combine. To give you a taste of what this looks like here's one of our HW problems, with a solution:

[ledworthy]

We are excited about the upcoming event, By Heart: Poetry Recital and Music. Students in all grades are reading poetry and will have opportunities to recite poetry in class to partners or larger groups of peers, depending on their comfort level. They will explore writing their own poetry as well. I'm hoping parents will share some of their favourite poetry with students. Teachers have already begun to bring in books and poems to share with us. We may invite Mike to share some of his own!

[ledworthy]

Students met to explore a poem in small groups. It's Friday afternoon so there may have been a little guitar playing in the music room as part of the discussion. Still, the discussions were thoughtful.

[mgelbart]

We have completed our study of trigonometry in Math 11 Preview. We build on the right-angle trigonometry from Math 10 to study non-right triangles (sine and cosine law) as well as the unit circle and radians. Students recently completed a quiz on this topic. Last week and this week students have had a choice of either Math 10 review or bonus activities. After spring break we will start our next big topic, quadratics.

We have also been continuing our math appreciation program every 2 weeks or so. It is going well! Last time we had the opportunity to explore ideas about probability in the context of a game, Undercut. Next, we will learn a bit about the subject of game theory, one of my personal favourite subject areas.

[PalomaCor]

For PHE class, we have recently had a field trip to the ice skating rink and to the Hive bouldering gym. It was lovely seeing the students support each other with the ice skating, so that even those students who were not as comfortable on the ice were able to participate and work on their balance. Students also engaged in some of the extra challenges: skating on one leg, doing crossovers while turning, and spinning in place. After our ice skating session, we spent some time running around, jumping, and climbing the structures at Rainbow Park.

It was wonderful to see the students being able to complete more climbs at the Hive than they were able to last year - they are getting stronger and more confident! They encouraged each other to try different climbs and congratulated their peers for their attempts and successes. I like that climbing is a competitive sport, but you are mostly competiting with yourself - trying to do better each time and challenging yourself to figure out the most efficient way to solve the climbing puzzle. I hope that some students will be motivated to visit the bouldering and climbing gym outside of school too.

[yhuangteacher]

Our two groups of Language 9/10 students have collaborated to explore the rich culinary traditions of French and Chinese cuisines through a group poster project! On the presentation day yesterday, students took each other on flavourful journeys, learning about Northern French, Southern French, Basque, New Caledonian, Hong Kong, Northern Chinese, Shanghai and Jiangzhe, and Sichuan cuisines. In a gallery style walk, students learned about different cultural dishes and evaluated their peers on their communication, creativity, and research. There were many engaging posters, including some beautiful hand drawings and creative designs such as a poster in the shape of a hot pot. Some students even prepared a Basque cheesecake and Hong Kong-style milk tea as part of their presentations!

Paloma and Erica

[mgelbart]

Today in math class the students are starting on their Desmos Art Projects. This is something Erica tried last semester with linear functions, and the students really enjoyed it so I'm bringing it back this semester but with quadratic functions this time. Here are some photos of their first steps this morning. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with!

[ledworthy]

Digging into the news! We're exploring world news from different sources as we assess information sources for topics of interest, looking at bias and point of view.

[ledworthy]

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Deep into reading A Swiftly Tilting World

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The Whiz Mob

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Looking at a timeline in The Science Book

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The Blood of Olympus

[Philip-Freeman]

ADST 9/10

Microcontrollers Students have been working with the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller, learning to use micropython to control events in the outside world and to read inputs from sensors.

Students reading light dependent resistors using the pico analog-digital converter and a multimeter. After learning to use the microcontroller the students undertook a design challenge: to design and build a colorimeter, a device that uses the absorption of light to measure the concentration of chemical solutions.

Commercial Colorimeters

Students were given samples with successive dilutions of a substance, and three unknowns: Samples of known concentration and unknowns (with our lovely Vancouver rain and construction scenery in the background)

Students designed and built their devices with only the basic principles being spelled out for them. A wide variety of designs were produced, most of which worked well.

A finished design. Note the construction of a light shield to prevent ambient light from interfering.

After completing their designs the known samples were used to produce calibration curves, and these were then used to calculate the concentrations of the unknowns. Most groups did well with this, being within 10% of the actual concentrations!

A sample calibration curve relating dilution to the reading from a student constructed colorimeter

Physics Cross-over Project Students are now working on their second design challenge, a cross-over with physics in which they are to use the microcontrollers to design something that can measure the acceleration of a falling object! Each student prepared a design proposal and poster, and students then bid to be in groups based on these proposals. Presently the groups are working on their constructions, encountering successes and failures in what I hope is a reasonable mock version of the real design processes I have worked on in the past.

Field Trip On Friday 11April the ADST 9/10 students made a fieldtrip to see the capstone projects of the Engineering students at UBC at the UBC Engineering Design & Innovation Day. Students had the opportunity to explore the many projects that these students undertook in the many sub-fields of Engineering in which they specialize.

One of the main display areas

Personal favourites for me were a prototype of a prosthetic hand with sensory feedback, and a design to create radiation shielding for a probe using lunar regolith. Often cited as interesting by students were a wearable health monitoring system and the AI based robotic air hockey player!

Special thanks to Mye Weissberg, our parent volunteer whose help and organization helped make sure that our students not only had a great experience, but all made it there and back!

 

[Philip-Freeman]

Physics 11i

Kinematics! We are now applying what we learned about vectors and relative motion to the study of motion in general, the branch of physics called kinematics. We began by looking at a relatively easily observed but not trivial motion – the motion of a toy wind-up caterpillar.

These little guys move fairly quickly, but slowly enough that it is possible to follow the motion, marking the position of the caterpillar every 0.5 seconds using a metronome for timing:

The resulting track can then be measured and used to describe the caterpillar’s motion

Inspiration 4 We then looked at a more complex real-world motion, the launch of a spacecraft (in our case the Inspiration 4 launch of the Space-X Dragon capsule to orbit).

Video from the launch and flight of Inspiration 4

The broadcast of the launch includes telemetry data, from which we are able to work out detailed information about the velocity and acceleration of the two stages

This in turn allows us to discuss graphs of position, velocity and acceleration in the context of this real motion. Those familiar with this physics will note the “free fall” of this stage after it’s engines cut out and before it fires again to land! This leads us to ballistic motion next!   Models of Projectile Motion Our most recent work has been to examine motion with constant acceleration. We can use our previous knowledge of motion graphs to derive a simple equation for an object falling from rest. But given what we know about relative motion we can see that the motion of the frame combines with the falling motion to give a parabola. This is illustrated in a lovely video older than I am (from the PSSC Physics project that was introduced following the shock of Sputnik's launch by the USSR!) Here it is shown, using a slow motion camera, that the ball falls straight down in the moving frame but in a parabola in the Earth's frame of reference

Using strings to show the distance fallen at different times we can build a physical model that shows this:

Position of the ball as it falls while moving sideways!

But the relative motion need not be horizontal! If the initial velocity is at an angle the “falling part” of the motion is the same… something we can show easily with our model by inclining the initial velocity metre stick:

We can use the model as a ‘mechanical calculator’ to describe this more complex motion:

And then do the equivalent calculation using a mathematical model (which is much easier to carry around!)

Physics art on the walls of VISST!

Having described motion we will next be moving to the causes of motion, beginning with momentum, then moving to forces, fields, and energy. This part of the course will be less mathematical, drawing on the groundwork we have done, but leaving computational details for the full course next year.

[mgelbart]

An update from Math class: given the "preview" nature of the course, we're continuing to take our time with each topic, which I've been really enjoying. Since Spring Break we have been studying quadratic functions / parabolas. The students did an amazing job on their math/art projects, where they were tasked with drawing something using mathematical functions, especially parabolas. In doing so, they expanded their intuition for how changes to the mathematical form affect the graphical representation and vice versa. This is one of the key skills for upper high school math, and in the coming years we will expand beyond quadratics to a wide range of functions. You can check out their artwork here. We hosted a short mini-showcase for the Grade 8s to see these projects. They were impressed and also excited to do this project in the future.

We will be finishing our investigation of parabolas, quadratic functions, and the quadratic formula in the next week or two. Tomorrow, we'll take head down to Granville Island to complete an outdoor trigonometry lab which was postponed last semester due to weather.

[mgelbart]

Yesterday we headed down to Granville Island for an outdoor trigonometry lab joint with the Grade 8s. The students were tasked with estimating the height of the Granville Bridge using clinometers (to measure angles), tape measures (to measure horizontal distances), and of course their math skills. We brought a laser range finder to check the correct height at the end. Some of the groups were able to estimate the height to within less than 2m accuracy!

Photos below: