This is my 2nd time teaching a high school physics class for homeschoolers, many of the labs will be the same but I will continue to post after each class this year, even if its just to point to a previous post. We’re using “How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday Life” by Louis A. Bloomfield, which is an algebra based physics text. The majority of the students are freshmen.
Before class I recommended students watch the following videos (and observe the eclipse that occurred the day before class).
The Map of Physics which gives a nice overview of Physics.
A clever way to estimate enormous numbers by Michael Mitchell – which describes Fermi estimates.
And a Crash Course Chemistry video on Unit Conversion & Significant Figures.
I gave the students a handout on lab notebooks and lab reports and had them label the first page of their lab notebook as Table of Contents. Lab notebooks are the student’s proof of doing real scientific labs which is especially important for homeschool students.
The lab today was pretty much the same thing I did last time, estimating the length of a hallway, measuring it with their feet (not a ruler, but their actual feet) and then with a meter stick. Last time I had them use hand spans but this was a longer distance so I had them use their feet, heal to toe. We talked about the sources of error, out lying points (1 measurement was off by almost exactly a meter so they probably mis-counted), calculated the average of everyone’s measurements and made a histogram of the feet measurements. You can check out a more detailed description on the original post on metric units and measurements.
I also had them do some worksheets in class on scientific notation and significant figures. Next week we’l look at speed, velocity and acceleration, Chapter 1.1 in How Things Work.