Wed, Sept 15, 2010

Skills needed for physics

Showed two-balloon experiment
Minimize surface area: A sphere is the shape that minimizes the surface area for a given volume.
Students calculated the volume and surface area for a cube of side length 1
Students calculated the volume, radius, and surface area for sphere of same volume.

Exercise in using a calculator.

Went over graphs - elements of a good graph
Handed out APS sheet for graph

Handling BIG and small numbers:
Scientific notation
Different units (like light year or AU)
Prefixes - STUDENTS MUST KNOW THE BASIC METRIC PREFIXES
Handed out APS sheet on BIG and small numbers

More pitfalls in using a calculator

Unit conversions
Went over unit conversion explanatory sheet
Students worked on unit conversion worksheet.
If they didn't finish, finish tomorrow for homework.