Yesterday Physics used Randall Munroe’s What If about Mt. Thor as the basis of their work on free fall. Today each group used a whiteboard the answer to their part of the question. We then did a gallery tour table to table to correct homework.
Tag: free fall
Physics is using “real” print articles for this unit about free fall – discussing what is “data” vs. what is “just numbers” and which to use in calculations. It was a good place to discuss “not eating candy you find on the ground” a concept touted by Rhett Allain, we discussed what would give you better outcomes vs. just using a number because it “fits”.
Also, it is a chance to work with real-world language; often textbooks have language that isn’t as authentic as what they might read in their daily lives. 
So we’ve modeled free fall from a couple of different perspectives: knowing ∆y, t, final velocity, but we’ve always done Earth based problems. What about “g”?
Given a list of tools: bowling ball, tall tower (1000 m), radar speed detector, and a tape measure: students were asked to propose a procedure to find “g”. Once the procedure was approved, I gave them an incomplete set of “data” to work with to calculate “g”
