Physics with Mr. Gleichauf
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
8th Grade Physics completes a three-year sequence of experimental investigations into several areas of Physics. In 8th grade, we revisited and deepened our understanding of thermal effects (especially identifying and differentiating conduction, convection and radiation as the three methods of warming/cooling), visual physics (especially refraction, prisms, color fringes, and convex lenses), and electricity and magnetism (focusing on the Oersted effect and electrical motors). A completely new area of study this year is hydraulics and aerodynamics (experiments related to water and air pressure phenomena). In 8th grade the emphasis in all of these areas is on being able to apply what we have discovered about Nature’s lawful behavior to predict effects in novel situations. The students had a block review exam that probed for demonstration of mastery in this way, answering scenario questions. At the end of the course, the successful student will have honed her/his skills of attention to the phenomena of the natural world and be able to describe them accurately, originally and richly using written word, illustration, metaphor and mathematics.