Unit 0 - Understanding Science

Week 1 - Introductions to the course (sept 4th-7th)

1. Tuesday- Introduce Mr. Goeldi, class website (HERE), start get to know you activity
2. Wednesday- Discuss what are important characteristics of a presentation, of exemplar work, of an audience.
   1. Derive criteria
   2. Introduce groups, people and airplanes
3. Thursday- Finish the paper airplane designs
   1. Follow up discussions, what worked best and why

Week 2- Scientific Method (Sept 9-14) -What is the Scientific Method

The scientific method is a way for scientist, engineers, and virtually anyone to conduct an investigation to ensure that the results are valid, reproducible, and void of human interference (meaning anyone any where should receive similar results)

1. Monday - Pretest for Physics concepts
2. Tuesday - Introduce the scientific method
   1. Independent Variable- The x-axis is the one that you are physically changing
   2. Dependent Variable- The y-axis measures the effect of the change that you made to the x-axis
   3. Slope- (m) is classically used to represent the rate of change of two variables, but it also indiciates what variables were held constant
   4. Control Variables- Variables that must be held constant to ensure you get the same results
   5. Y-intercept- This is your starting point and indicates how much you had when you started to record data
   6. Constants- things that don't change in an experiment
   7. Linearize- In this course we will constantly be trying to produce a linear equation in the form of Y=mx+b
   8. Sometimes graphs will be curved (radical functions, inverse functions, exponential functions, logarithmic functions...etc) and in order to fit the data to a straight line one of the axis will need to be modified
3. Wednesday- Review scientific method and conduct inquiry on bowling ball period
   1. Driving question- what affects the time it takes a bowling ball to complete one full revolution?
   2. Period- the time it takes for one full revolution or cycle
4. Thursday- Continue bowling ball investigation
5. Friday- continue bowling ball investigation

Week 3- scientific method - Applications of science 9/16-9/20

1. Monday- whiteboard worksheet 1
2. Tuesday - Quiz on Graphing - Start lab report - How strong is Spaghetti?
   1. Link to proper lab report format
3. Wednesday - Work on lab - How strong is spaghetti?
4. Thursday - Work on lab report - How strong is spaghetti?
   1. Lab Report is DUE MONDAY
5. Friday-Quiz on Proportional Thinking

Week 4- scientific method - Applications of science 9/23-9/27

1. Monday- Whiteboard worksheet 2 - Unit Conversions
2. Tuesday - whiteboard worksheet 3 - Proportional Thinking
3. Wednesday - Whiteboard Review for Test
4. Thursday KEY FOR THE REVIEW PACKET