This part of my digital portfolio will highlight some of the activities or investigations that we do in our math/ physics class.
The Marshmallow Challenge
In the marshmallow challenge the goal was to make the tallest tower. The only supplies we were given to build the tower were raw spaghetti noodles and tape. We were also given one marshmallow which had to sit on the top of the tower. The tower was then measured from the ground or table, whichever surface you built your tower on, to the top of the marshmallow. We were in teams of four and all given an equal amount of tape and noodles. In this activity not only did I learn about structure and shapes but most importantly I learned about communication and working as a team. Our team did not do so well, our tower fell over and we lost. I think part of the reason we didn't do so great was because we weren't communicating our ideas and working together. Each of us just grabbed some noodles and started building and adding to the tower so the pattern of the structure was inconsistent because we really had no plan. In result, we failed. This activity was useful because it taught me that in group work communication is key. I learned a valuable lesson from the marshmallow challenge.
Barbie Bungee Lab
In this investigation the objective is to get barbie as close to the ground as possible without her hitting the floor. Using rubber bands we linked them together to make her bungee cord. We had to predict the best number of rubber bands that would give our barbie a safe jump from the rail in front of High Tech High Media Arts. In order to make our best prediction we first measured how far barbie went when she only had 1 rubber band as has her bungee cord then 2 then 3 and so on till 12. With that we saw a pattern of how much distance each rubber band got. Since we knew how long the jump was and how far barbie went with one rubber band we had all the information needed to create an equation that would tell us how many rubber bands she needed for a safe jump for the distance required. This activity was really fun and I learned a lot about independent and dependent variables and how they affect each other in a relationship.
K3: Moving Man Lab
In the moving man lab we used an online simulation to accurately interpret and draw position-time graphs and velocity-time graphs. In this lab Nicole gave us a whole bunch of situations like "The man starts at the tree (p=-8) and moves toward the house (p=8) with constant velocity." Then we had to draw what we thought the position-time graph and velocity-time graph would look like. The simulation would show us what it would actually look like and we got to check if we were right. I learned a lot about how position-time graphs and velocity-time graphs work and how they are different through this lab. It was very helpful to see a visual and learn about these two different graphs.