Physics is natural science, in this class we learned about Newtons Laws, we learned to make circuits, and how to create our own rockets. We learned about the science behind different things such as sunscreen or the Amazon Rain forest. This class raised many opportunities for me to discover how everything works and the science and physics behind it.
Team Banner
The team banner was our first project of the year, it was a bonding experience for the whole team. Every year the freshman make banner based on their team name. It's a process of listing up team names, elimination by vote, and then designing. Over the course of maybe 3 days we had slowly combine all voted designs through various sessions of critique. After the final design was chosen it was time to start building. Our final choice in name was Team Spicy, and our banner design was a hot sauce bottle on top of an ant hill with fir in the back and ants climbing it. We first assigned roles such as people in charge of tracing the design on wood, people cutting it out, and people painting. Those who weren't assigned to work on the main piece, were designing their ants. On our sketch of the design we had fire ants working together to symbolize teamwork which we desire in our team. We all personalized our ants and that was a process of drawing ant designs, we wanted one to work with so they all had the same shape, After that we would draw it on the wood, cut it out, and paint it to our liking. After everything was painted we would piece everything together and it would be hung right above our classrooms.
From this project i learned more about handling power tools and craftsmanship. We actually cut out the ants ourselves as well bending wires and attaching them to the body of the ant to replicate legs and antennas. We learned about art, such as primary colors, secondary colors, and how to paint the wood nicely. We made our own colors out of the primary. We learned about scaling and scaled our banner design down on grid paper. We cut wood and learned safety protocols. The whole project was in our hands to create something we all wanted, the choice was up to us.
I think the thing I'm most proud of is the painting and art portion of our project. I've always loved art and want to learn more about painting with acrylics (the paint we used) and being able to e proud of something I painted, I think it was a great learning experience, Something I would probably change about this project was my ant. I didn't like at all how it came out, and I went through many struggles of painting it how I would like it But I think through the painting mistakes of my ant i now know what I can revise in the future.
Project Spark
Our next project was Project Spark, we visited Vista Square Elementary School and were paired up with 3rd grade buddies. Here we would be mentoring them and having fun while teaching them a couple things. The kids didn't have the same classes as we do in High Tech, they didn't have such hands on experiences so we wanted to have them participate in those kind of activities. We had various games that would teach kids science. We as well wanted to mentor the children because mentoring can help lead the kids to a better path! We had various Field Trips to their school where we play games and such and help them with reading, we also got to know them and their aspirations. We had Science Day where we do an experiment when they came and visited our school. We all prepared an experiment such as mine, slime. We also made them pizza box circuits! While making the pizza box circuits, I learned a lot about how they work. Such as how its important to make sure you don't have two positives or else your circuit wont work! I learned about Ohm's Law which states " the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the voltage across the two points." Which means the current is low in the tank when with a higher resistor. I learned while making circuits how important it is to make sure the positive and negative don't touch since that could ruin your circuit. As well that if your lighting up an LED that the negative touches the cathode of the LED and the positive the anode.
I think through project spark i learned a lot about mentoring and helping others out as well on teaching children. I think I was proudest of my pizza box because it was extremely difficult. I made so many mistakes throughout which led to frustrating moments and slowing my process. Overall I'm just glad I finished them in good conditions so my buddies could enjoy the final result.
Science Current Event
Every week we have a science current event. We have to pick an article we find interesting and write down of summary of such article and our thoughts on how it may impact us. We can write about anything that interests us as long as its a recent article and its about science. Our writing must be at least a paragraph long as well.
Science current events are something I enjoy frequently! I love doing them because they can at times talk about problems in the world such as glaciers melting and how it will affect the animals. Or at times it can just be something odd and fun to learn about. Such as Human Biology which has so many different sub topics like about how certain foods can negatively impact your body. SCE just really open up your mind and educates you on different things that you find interesting and might inspire you!
This is my favorite SCE because it talks about the possibility of the universe being a vast and complex hologram! I found this one interesting because it gave me similar vibes to a conspiracy theory, and I've always liked those since at times they can be completely ridiculous and just funny or they can convince you and creep you out.
Here's a link to the article I read for this SCE https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170130083231.htm
Force and Newtons Laws
In class we taught a lot about Forces, Newtons Laws, and trigonometry since they corresponded a lot to an upcoming project. We learned the F=MA which means Force equals Mass times Acceleration and by doing that equation you'll get the force of that object. We learned Newtons Three laws; Law 1: An object at rest will stay at rest and an object motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Law 2: F=MA. Law 3: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Learning these concepts were frustrating at times but got easier over time. My favorite concept had to be trigonometry since my friends would help make it fun. And there was a certain song that would help us memorize how to do it. I learned about the different side of a triangle such as the Opposite, Adjacent, and Hypotenuse. As well as learning how to spot them. Or theta is another word for angle and how to solve for a part of the triangle.
I think I'm most proud of overall being able to overcome the challenges I had with these concepts. At first they were incredibly difficult to catch on too and I had such a terrible understanding of them. And at times I just wanted to give up. But with the help of my friends and teacher I was able to get a grasp of the concepts and improve my work of them.
Colonizing Mars
Congress has recently signed a legislation that says we will be having a manned mission, to Mars, by 2025. Our project gives the opportunity to learn how to launch and build rockets, through failure and success. For the Colonizing Mars Project, we were launching rockets and learned about various things such as Forces and Trigonometry. Rockets have been around for a while and have been a huge part of US history. They have helped us go to space and win the Space Race! We made our own rockets from home materials such as Toilet paper rolls, Card stock, and etc.
Something I learned during this project is there are a lot of people who worked behind the scenes, doing many calculations while not fully getting their credit at the end of the day. Such as Katherine Johnson and the many computers who worked along side her to get a man into orbit. And its just absolutely ridiculous that they didn't get their credit because they were black. She didn't get much credit until 2016. So it's important to credit those who contribute. I also learned a lot about launching and such cautions to take when launch, such as standing 16 ft back at all times and making sure the key isn't inserted when placing the rocket down for launch.
What I'm most proud of for this project is the rocket we built. We all had assigned missions and ours was longest flight time and we won. It just took so many drafts and adjustments everyday to perfect it, even though it wasn't, and it all payed off in the end when we were one of the top 3! Since there were three missions and in each one someone was the champion.
Here's a link to my Rocket DP where me and my partner talk about the process: http://colonizingmarsvenus8.weebly.com/
Relativity and Physicist Research
Our final project was about educating us on black holes, time stretches and others related to that. We learned that when your having lots of fun and enjoying the moment time actually does go faster it's not just your imagination. Just as how time goes slower when your bored and not having fun. The second portion of the project was a painting of a physicist of our choice. First we do research of them and find our interests and and bout their lives and achievements . We would water color them on wood, and around them would be images chosen by that we think would best represent them. Finally we would create an artist statement talking about our piece and its symbolize and why we choose them.
From this project I learned about multiple dimensions through a film we watched that discussed about things related to that. I thought this was incredibly interesting to learn about this because I have always wondered about them. Now theirs this concept that they're probably real. It just as if you make the choice of say eating chocolate cake today rather than vanilla in an alternate dimension you would choose vanilla. And because of that small difference your future is different in that dimension. Or say you dding get any cake at all, everything is different. People even say their might be a dimension where your president! And its just crazy because you wonder to yourself what dimension am I in?
My favorite part of this project was painting the physicist . I love art very much and it's something calming for me so I was extremely excited to be doing a water color for my project . I painted Hedy Lamarr and Inventor and Actress, she created a non-jammable Frequency hopping signal during WWII. This led to the invention of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth I think my painting really captured what I wanted. Especially the calla lilies since they represent beauty and she was known for being very gorgeous. If I could do one thing different I would flip the Bluetooth vertically since I accidentally put it horizontally.
Science Curiosity
Science curiosity to me is when your interested in a certain area of science and are trying to educate yourself on it. Such as reading books, articles and/or watching films about whatever it is that person might want to discover. And not just it being one topic but also being open to learning different science areas. As well as learning the both sides of their main topic.
I think I enjoy science a lot more, I just love learning so many different things such as animal biology. I like to see how they live and what they do to survive and how we're treating the planet affects them, or how we do treat them. I use to not be so open to science or physics since I thought it would mainly be lots of math that'd we'd have to do. And while physics is still amount of math I'm not weary of it was I was before. But I still don't love it. I would definitely prefer science over physics any day. Technology I haven't thought to deeply of it, I think the main takeaway from there was how long ago phones were created I didn't think it was so long ago.
Science of everything has played a big impact on my bigger liking of science. Every day we have a science of everything and what it is is a small overview of the science of various things. IT could be sunscreen or hands! The reason I enjoy them is because they aren't so long and teach you much more than you'd expect. I also enjoy the various presentations we have that students present themselves about the science of whatever they want. It really helps with presenting skill and their grade overall. Since we get extra credit points when we do them.