Ms. English, GK12 fellow and graduate student at San Francisco State University, and Ms. Grace, ISA teacher, present:

So what’s been going on in the world of physics at ISA this semester? Read on and find out for yourself!
Getting Pushy

What is the relationship among mass, force, and acceleration? With a couple of stopwatches, a skateboard and a spring scale, students put Newton’s second law, F=ma, to the test.

José Castro and Tashiana Jefferson discover it’s not so easy to keep a constant force, while Tommy Tieu and Christine Wong keep time.

Balloon Rockets

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

Students explored Newton’s third law in this lab by constructing balloon rockets which flew across the room on a guy wire. Some rockets even made it all the way across!! So can rockets fly in space? Ms. Grace’s physics students know the answer.

Ibukun Hambolu and Orlando Fuñes prepare their rockets for launching.

Students waiting for their turn to test their rocket designs.

24 Hour Towing

What is force multiplication? Ms. Grace’s students explored this very useful phenomenon out on the playground. Ms. Grace bravely donated her trusty car for the demonstration.

Candice Branner demonstrates her strength!

Christine Wong gives an exploratory tug, and Saul Lopez shows off some muscle.

Muscle Up

Ever wonder how much power you can produce? In this lab the students calculated the power they expended running up stairs.

 Jeffrey Wu is up for the challenge! José Castro, Karché Bass, and Saul Lopez are neck and neck, but who is the most powerful?

 Tommy Tieu and Montshona Ruut go for the gold, while Andrea Bañas, Jamilah King, Ibukun Hambolu, Karla Rodrigues and Antonia Festa take data.

Egg Drop

Drop an egg from the height of 2 stories and it breaks, right? Well, not always.  In this lab students tested their ingenuity and designed containers to keep the eggs intact.

Anna Vongvixay and Tommy Tieu give their projects a try.

Jamilah King lets her project fall, and Ms. English checks to see if the egg is still intact.

“You want us to hit that tiny target?”

“You gotta be kidding, Ms. Grace!”

Marble Momentum

Conservation of momentum – it’s the law! Or is it? Students in this lab use marbles to determine if the m*v initial equals m*v final.

Antonia Festa and Saul Lopez set up their experiment.

Willie Durr and Armando Cutino do some number crunching to test the theory.

Was momentum conserved? Ask the students!

Projectile Motion

Just how far will a projectile travel? Using some trigonometry and Newton’s laws, students made their hypotheses and tested them using some fancy projectile equipment from San Francisco State.

Tashiana Jefferson and Deanna Goodwin check their projection angle, and Ibukun Hambolu gets ready for another run.

Christine Wong prepares her cannon, while Javier Alvarez and Orlando Fuñes use Excel to calculate their theoretical trajectories.

Karché Bass and Annette Smith are ready for launching!

Mousetrap Cars!

How can you convert potential energy into kinetic energy? Build a mousetrap car!! Check out what Ms. Grace’s class came up with!

Carlos Sierra, Tommy Tieu, Willie Durr, Jeffrey Wu, Nai Xing Lei, and Svetla Isayeva show off their creations.

Montshona Ruut and Armando Cutino at the starting line. Javier Alvarez holds up his masterpiece.

Scale of the Solar System

Ever wonder just how big the solar system is? Ms. Grace’s class took one step for every 3,600,000 miles and soon discovered it’s a long way to Pluto!

Students stroll through the expanse of empty space, on their way to Jupiter, and Yvonne Parma keeps track of the distance to the Sun.

Anna Vongvixay and Jamilah King compare notes, while Carla Rodriguez contemplates the enormity of space.

Anna Vongvixay holds up Earth, in this scale a peppercorn, and Karché Bass displays Uranus, a peanut.

Antonia Festa carefully counts her steps on the way to the next planet, and Montshona Ruut holds up the sun.

Acceleration of Gravity

How can we measure the value of the acceleration of gravity? Just give Ms. Grace’s physics students a few simple tools such as a stopwatch, meterstick, pendulum, inclined plane, a marble and a nickel, and they can figure out “g” three different ways!

Candice Branner and Andrea Banas test “g” by dropping coins from different heights.

Armando Cutino and Carlos Sierra compare data, while Tashiana Jefferson and Carla Rodriguez discuss stopwatch techniques.

Thanks everyone for a really fun semester! See you in the spring and don’t forget:

physics is cool!. –Ms. English