[Phys-L] Re: student difficulties with velocity as a vector?

[william.r.thomas at GMAIL.COM (William Thomas)]

Hello,
 I am new to the list, and new to teaching. I just accepted a positio=
n this
year at a Career and Technical High School (formerly known as vocatio=
nal)
and am trying to incorporate some conceptual physics into my program.=
 The
math abilities of the students are very wide ranging (from 4-5th grad=
e level
to a little above grade level) but I don't think this precludes them =
=66rom at
least understanding basic concepts and simple formulas such as F=3Dma=
.
 I am just begining a unit on designing and building a trebuchet, and=
 while
we have lots of references for construction, and the project seems to=
 have
captured the interest of the students, I don't want it to be all sizz=
le and
no steak. I would love to hear suggestions from the list about ways t=
o
maximize the impact of the physics that can be taught to this diverse=
 group
of students through the project.
 I would also appreciate it if someone could direct me to the resourc=
es
described below by John Clement.
 Thanks very much,
 William Thomas
 BTW - we have an excellent machine tool and metal fabrication progra=
m that
is looking to do some additional community outreach projects. If anyo=
ne
needs help building demo equipment please let me know and we may be a=
ble to
build it for you for the cost of materials. We are in Maine so larger
projects may be better suited to more local schools due to cost of sh=
ipping.



> by prediction it worked better. One approach to improving demos wou=
ld be
> to
> get the Interactive Lecture Demonstrations by Sokoloff and Thornton=
,
> Wiley.
> These are partially scripted lecture demos which work very well. Th=
e
> sequence of demos and the order of operations are scripted, but the=
 words
> you say are not.
>
>
> Again, I would urge people to first all get onto the same page by r=
eading
> the McDermott article, and perhaps looking at the McDermott tutoria=
ls.
> John M. Clement
> Houston, TX