Grace+Carroll+3-10-09

On March 10, 2009 I returned to Mr. Manning’s fourth period physics class to continue with my monthly reports. Today was a different kind of day, the students did not complete a daily question and they did not have homework from the night before to check. Since it was a shortened period, they did not have that much time so the day’s activities consisted of Mr. Manning performing an experiment and the students finishing part of a lab. Mr. Manning’s experiment was where he put a tiny plastic cup of water on another square object that served as the platform. The cup of water was not attached to the platform, or tied down to it in any way, but was sitting there on its own. The platform was attached to strings that Mr. Manning held onto to swing the object through the air in. You’d think the water would spill out of the cup, but surprisingly, it stayed in it. The force that kept the object spinning in the circular motion was its centripetal force, which is the force that is from the center. The force from the center is the basis for the rest of the motion of the circle, and that central force kept it moving throughout the air, allowing the water to stay in the cup. After he performed that experiment, the students finished some of the experiment from the previous day. On pages 5-7, which they received a few days ago, they had to fill out data regarding the centripetal force, speed, mass and radius of as spring scale and a certain mass. The spring scale measured the tension because of the mass of the object, and the object was attached to the spring scale. After calculating the correct force, velocity, time, and speed, the students had to graph their data. The rest of the period was spent graphing their data on the computers, but they did not finish the lab because they ran out of time. Hopefully, I will be able to come in another day and learn and observe another experiment and complete a lab.