Match A Graph - PASCO

I hear and I forget,

I see and I remember,

I do and I understand.

                                     - Confucius -

Sometimes the best way to solidify a concept in the minds of students it is best to use the most basic of experiences to drive home the point. The PASCO GLX series offers a very functional and simplistic  E-Z Lab called Match-a-Graph. utilizing force motion sensors to graph motion.  Although this lab is designed for junior high students ist provides a great opportunity to explore the concepts of graphing motion and the relationship between displacement, time and velocity.  For many high school physics students, there is a difficulty in the understanding of how the x and y axis of a coordinate plane in math functions as velocity or acceleration tool in physics. The transition in understanding that the y-axis can function for directional motion rather than a negative and positive value. It  is invaluable to get students to think in terms of  a negative velocity or displacement is backward, south or left and a positve velocity or displacement is forward, north or right.  Moving their bodies to match the graph really brings this concept together for most students and makes the next steps of calculating displacement and velocity so much easier.

The program provides four pre-fabricated motion models.  Students try to match the movement pattern represented by the graph both by displacement and velocity based upon the direction and slope of the graph.  The GLX data logger and the force motion sensor translate the movement into a line graph that is superimposed over the original graph.  Students determine their velocity and displacement based upon the graph created. Students must complete two trials for each graph and compare their own data with the other members of their group.

The Match-a Graph lab also provides insight for students of the relationship between slope of the line and increases or decreases in velocity, and finally the significance of a horizontal line as a representation of an object at rest. I use this lab to also provide practice in organizing data, using dtat tables and labels. I also have the students find the averages of trials for each student and determine who is the best at Match a Graph from their group based upon numeric comparison.

Match a Graph a Lab pdf

Visiting the Past with Billy Joel

"Those who do not learn from history,
are doomed to repeat it."

                                            - George Santyana - 

Although there is a tendancy to think that connections to the past take place in only in history or religion classes, making connections to the present and the future is something that
can be done in any class.

One way to do this in regards to 20th century history is to explore the last half of the century
using Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire". 

Reviewing all of the historical references allows both teacher and students to create
historical, political, social, entertainment and sports connections from the decades
of the forties through the eighties.  

Getting students to look at them from a six degrees of separation point of view helps them to see that nothing in this world is a stand alone. 

I complete the assignment by having students continue the song by writing verses for the decade of the nineties and the first decade of the new century.

Since I use this primarily in my environmental science class, I mandate that there must be line references within the verses about science and enviromental topics.

It is an eye opener, to see where students take this, what they focus on as important and where they make connections throughout the recent past and their present.  

We Didn't Start the Fire

(by Billy Joel )

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I", and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Josef Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Zhou Enlai, Bridge On The River Kwai
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California Baseball,
Starkweather homicide, Children of Thalidomide
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land,
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it ........

Greenwashing - The Seven Sins

If you paint it GREEN, does it become environmentally sound.

Are there any products on the market that do not claim to to be GREEN?

Green plastic, Green water, Eco-cleaners, Organic Fruits, Recycled products.

Basically, GREEN has become the marketing boom of the new century. 

How do you tell which product is environmentally authentic?  Which companies have truly green policies.  What is the value to the environment of your purchasing power?

In my Environemntal Science class we explore the current trend of greenwashing by utilizing a website from TerraChoice, The Sins of Greenwashing.   

The website offers definitions and examples of each of the seven sins of the greenwashing trend, including vagueness, no proof, trade-offs, false labels, lesser of evils, irrelevance and outright fibbing. 

The site also provides annual reports of the environmental and greenwashing histories of the companies and products that are most guilty of these sins. 

The TerraChoice website include interactive games and reviews as well as links to social media and activists sites to encourage understanding and involvement.

I send my students out to find their own evidence of this greenwashing phenomenon.  Students are ask to take pictures of billboards, ads, products, packaging that evidence these seven sins. As part of the assignment thay must research the companies environmental history and current environemntal policies. Students must find a minimum of three examples and explain the how their photo evidence and the companies policies demonstrate and invalidate the products claims. 

Creating awareness is the first step in understanding.    

30 MINUTE STUDY PLAN

"Failing to Prepare, is Preparing to Fail."

                                                               - John Wooden -

How many times have you, as a teacher, heard a student make the claim that they studied for over three hours the night before and still didn't do well on the test?

Now we all know that studying a little bit over a longer period is the best method to learn material for the long haul. But, we also know that our students are champion procrastinators.  They spread themselves to thin with school work, clubs, sports, social activities. And we also know that most teenagers know that the world might end anytime so why study at all until you absolutely have to.

Knowing all of this, I put together a suggested study routine to assist our procrastinators, overschedulers and soothsayers, in their methods of study.  This study plan works on 30 minute session to maximize time and memory.  For most people our brains can only retain about a half hour of material at a time.  If we study for two hours straight we will remember the first fifteen minutes and the last fifteen minues of what we study and very little from the middle hour and a half.  Thereby wasting a good hour and a half of functional time.  Unless the brain is given the opportunity to shift gears and restart, the brain functions best in half hour increments.  (Think about television shows. 30 minute sitcoms. Hour long dramas with commercial breaks about 13 minutes apart.)   

I go over this study plan with each of my classes to help students understand the ways our brain works and to assist them in improving their study habits and to maximize their abilities to learn.

Study Smarter

not Harder!!!

Life is Good - Playmakers

From the time I put on my first shirt and read the brief history of Bert and John Jacobs, I have been highly impressed with their philanthropic pursuits, their environmental policies and ultra simplistic but completely fulfiilling nature of the simple messages of the Life is Good Company.

Whether it is Jake suggesting to, "Do what you like, but like what you do", or the simple messages of Peace, Earth and Love. The Life is Good concepts are something that everyone should be reminded of daily. 

Recently, Life is Good developed a program called Playmakers designed to enhance play for children to assist in healing.  Healing of all types, physical, emotional, or social.  The You Tube video below provides a tremendous message about the power of play and all of our roles in providing these opportunities to those we love and those entrusted to our care.

Thank you Bert and John

Life is Good!!!