Grace+Carroll+11-3-08


 * The Physics Journalist:**
 * Volume 1: Issue 2**
 * Once again, I was back in Mr. Manning’s class 4th period physics class. On November 3, 2008 I had to observe his class and record what I and the students had learned. The first thing Mr. Manning did that day was pass back papers from a few weeks back. Included in these papers was a test. After the students got the test back they went over it, and the teacher asked the students if they had any questions, and then he reviewed the questions they had problems with. After this, the students started a new Unit. Unit 4 would include learning about Netwon’s 2nd Law, mass, weight, friction, force and motion, as well as other topics. On this particular day, the students started learning about force and motion through a force and motion lab. During the last unit, the students learned that an unbalanced force causes an object to accelerate. During this lab, the students had to find the relationship between the unbalanced force that was exerted onto a cart, and the acceleration of the cart as it moved. The students had to apply a pulling force to the cart and then measure the cart’s acceleration. A force sensor measured the pulling force on the cart, and a motion detector drew a VT graph on the laptop. (The force sensor would help us measure the pulling force in Netwons, whilte the motion detector would measure the cart’s acceleration in m/s2. After learning some background information about the lab, we had to make predictions. We had to predict what the relationship would be between the unbalanced force and the acceleration. I guessed a linear relationship, meaning that if the unbalanced force was tripled, then the acceleration would triple. Another relationship was a square relationship, meaning that the relationship would be nine times greater than the original, or an inverse relationship meaning that the acceleration would be 1/3 as much as the original. After the students and I made our predictions, we set up the lab. But because there was limited time in the class, my group only had time to pull a 50 gram weight on the cart. The pulling force was 0.5271 N while the acceleration was 0.1020 m/s2. The cart pulled the weight along the track while one of the partners in the group pulled the string attached to the cart and it ran along the track. The pattern was graphed on the computer. Since we did not have enough time to finish the lab, I could not determine whether my prediction was correct or incorrect. Hopefully I will return another day to finish the lab and verify my predictions!**
 * --Grace Carroll**