Week 6: Day 1

Things so far are going according to plan. We continued to circuit diagram, though we did mess up a couple of times on the measurements. I continued it at home. Apart from that, there is nothing much to report.

Tomorrow I will finish illustrating the poster and writing the essay (requirement #4). If I don't finish it then it'll be holiday work.

Hopefully I can get some work done during the holidays, so this unit can be done in around 8 or 9 weeks.

Plan for Week 6

This week I am hoping to get the circuits project done, so that we would be free of it during the winter break.

Day 1

In Class: Draw the circuit diagram on the poster from the outline.
At Home: Finish the circuit diagram on the poster from the outline. Print off any quotes we will need to explain what we have on the poster.

Day 2

In Class: Illustrating the poster to make it look attractive. Use the quotes printed in Day 1: At Home.
At Home: Finish illustrating the poster.

Day 3

(I won't be in class today, so class and home would be combined.)

Spend time watching videos, and do the quiz if possible. I'm hoping to finish watching all the videos posted.

Week 5: Day 3

Today in class we brought the poster and started working on it. We named our project "Watts En Haut." "Watts" is for obvious reasons, and "En Haut" because we're doing the upper floor of my house, and "En Haut" is "upstairs" in French.

We decided on the poster layout: requirement number one, the circuit diagram, will be at the top while requirement number two, the floor plan, will be at the bottom. The drawing for the top part of the poster will be on the right, and the quotes/explanation will be on the left. The drawing for the bottom part of the poster will be on the left, and the quotes/explanation will be on the right. We measured it and drew the lines, and I drew a little cartoon light bulb next to the title, thinking that it will attract some viewers if there is a comic relief there. We started transferring the draft of the floor plan to our poster.

However, when we met up on Saturday to do the work, we discovered that the scale is tricky and we need to measure the dimensions. We went around the house measuring with a coil of wire that's a meter long. It is queer to measure the house out like this. Thankfully, we got the floor plan for the upper floor measured correctly and transferred down on the poster in a few hours time. We spent the rest of our time making note of all the electric appliances, but we could not discover how many watts each appliance has.

Again, we're taking things slow, but we expect a good grade on this.

Week 5: Day 2

Today, with the rough draft of the floor plan completed, I started on the circuit diagram. I did not draw most of the circuit diagram myself; I just gave the floor plan and directed the drawing. It is a little different on how it really is, but that is fine.

It is difficult to pull off the drawing neatly and accurately with so many appliances to put in at each different rooms, but that is okay since it's just a rough draft.

At home I continued the draft and finished it.

Tomorrow I will buy the poster and copy this rough draft and the rough draft of the floor plan I did in the previous lesson down. It will be neater, and the circuit diagram will be color coded for each room, instead of having to draw walls. I will also watch videos and finish any leftover work.

Week 5: Day 1

Today in class we worked on the floor plan. I took a picture of the diagram on the board so that we can reference it later if we want to.

I continued the rough outline I did last class on the schematic drawing of floor plan, or requirement number two. I also cleared up the differences between number one and number two, as well as planned our poster layout. Two sheets- one showing the circuit diagram with proper labels (Note to self: color code each room and draw anything that is not a light bulb with a resistor symbol with a label of what appliance it is. If it's a light bulb, draw a light bulb.), and another showing the floor plan (Note to self: Label the appliances in the floor plan and include how many wattage each has)- will be side by side on the poster below the title. On the bottom of the poster will be number four, which we haven't started working on yet. Quotes will be put around empty spaces at the poster.

Due to the poor marks I got on the Sound Waves and Beats lab report, and the new tips, I looked over that in class as well in case there was any questions I needed to ask. I did not make any revisions yet.

At home, I continued the rough outline, or requirement number two. Once we get everything done on this rough outline, we'll create a neater one. I also did this blog post.

Plan for Week 5

This week I feel we should spend most of it on the circuit project. I know it is a little extensive to spend the whole week, but I feel we should get it done before Christmas break, and I could ask questions about things I don't know.

Day 1

In Class:

Work on floor plan started last class. 

At Home:

Continue floor plan.

Do blog post.

Day 2

In Class:

Start requirement #2:
Accurate circuit diagram with proper labels.  The design should be WHAT YOU WANT IT TO BE, not necessarily what it actually is.  So if you think there are outlets missing from certain rooms or that there should be more switches or that the switches should be in different places, etc. then go ahead and design it that way.

At Home:

Continue requirement #2

Do blog post.

Day 3

In Class: Watch videos that may help (Can ask questions in class if anything is difficult to understand)

At Home:

Continue any work left unfinished during Day 1 and Day 2.

Do blog post.

Weekend

Meet up and take a quick look around the house, and finish the project if possible. Requirement #4 may have to be done next week. 

Do lesson plan for next week.

Week 4: Day 3

This Friday I started the project. I'm working with Viktoria, Moh, and Junhee.

 Design and describe/explain a circuit diagram to show how you would wire all of the lights and appliances (outlets) on one floor of your house.  This should include an investigation of how much power (wattage) each light and appliance uses to determine the total electrical load required.

We decided to use my house for the diagram, and we hope to meet up on a weekend to plan it out.

Requirements

1.     Accurate circuit diagram with proper labels.  The design should be WHAT YOU WANT IT TO BE, not necessarily what it actually is.  So if you think there are outlets missing from certain rooms or that there should be more switches or that the switches should be in different places, etc. then go ahead and design it that way.

2.     Schematic drawing of floor plan showing the wiring, switches, appliances and lighting with appropriate labels (including power loads required for each appliance/light)

3.     A regularly updated project/unit journal

4.     A written description of your design including an explanation of the science, which influenced your work and a description of the electric power (wattage) required to run all of the lights and appliances in your diagram.

Today we started working on the drawing plans of the house. We did the upper floors, accounting for anything that may use electricity.  It took up most of the class. Viktoria and I planned most of it, dividing the workload between number one and two between each other and with Junhee. Moh will be helping, but most of his work will be for number 4.

We all will be doing our individual journals for number 3 on this blog.

At home I decided to go over the videos and lab reports (one last time) so I can get ready for the quiz.

Week 4: Day 2

Today I continued yesterday's line of work. I didn't get as much done as I hoped, since I wanted to start the project today. However, Google Docs seems to be having a problem and won't let me edit it, saying that something went wrong and I should reload it all the time.

However, I did get Lab #2 done- finally getting all three labs done. At home, I watched the videos again, as I forgot some parts I needed to add to the procedure.

There is nothing much to report. On Friday I will be starting the circuit project.

Week 4: Day 1

The investigation: Who said Pickle? is not quite ready yet. However, that is fine since we decided to finish everything else before starting magnetism.

We already finished Lab #1 last week, and last class I was able to go through Lab #3. Lab #3 seemed okay, but I added some things to the materials this class. Instead of using PhET simulation and computer, I added the number of wires and everything used, since I was told to treat this as a real experiment and not a simulation.

Lab #2 needed a bit more refining. My partners had already did some things concerning the overall design of the experiment, but I need to add the procedure and get screenshots. I started this today.

At home, I watched some more videos. I'm also planning to start the project on circuits soon.

Week 3: Day 3

Today is hopefully the last day of working on these three lab reports.

As I said in my last post for Day 2, today I wrote the conclusion for Electric Current Flow In Circuits Lab Report. Then I revised my other two lab reports. Both of the labs were pretty hard to design as well, but did not need as much guidance as the first lab report, which I redid three times.

There was nothing really new learnt today; I just went over the things I already knew and did extra research to verify it.

There's nothing much to report, but by next week Tuesday I will be starting on Investigation 1: Who said Pickle?

Edit: All posts for this week were to be posted on Sunday, but the internet connection was down.

Week 3: Day 2

Today I continued working on the re-do of my lab report. Since the last two attempts were a failure, I did this one slowly to make sure everything was in order.

With my group members, I typed up the procedure and used screenshots. Then I edited it again and again. The process was painstakingly slow, but it is necessary to be meticulous so we don't have to do it again.

In addition, designing our experiment was hard even with help. While we know the information, it is hard to put it all in words in a lab report. However, in the end, we did get the procedure done, and it seemed understandable. What we started learning last class and completely understood this class was the way the electric current flows in different types of circuits. Here is the summary:

In this series circuit, the electric current runs the same amount throughout the circuit. There are three lightbulbs 0.9 amps. It is divided by three, so there are 0.3 amps running throughout the circuit.

In this particular parallel circuit with three bulbs, when the electric current flows through the first bulb, the current decreases by 0.9 amps. After the current flows through the second bulb, it decreases by 0.9 amps.

At home I did extra research just to make sure that the lab report made sense- and it did. I did every part of the report, but I still need to go over the conclusion, which I will do next class.

Week 3: Day 1

Today class time was- to put simply- a waste.

While I was putting the finishing touches on my "Circuit Flow of Electricity" Lab Report and re-watching the video to make sure it was all correct, I realized that the lab question is wrong in the first place.

The question was: How does a circuit's current and voltage relate to one another?

However, it turned out that we needed to talk about either series or parallel circuits, or both. We just talked about the simple circuit in it. I thought that we could design the experiment the way we thought was fitting, but we forgot to include the circuit type. In my first draft of the report- the original question- included the circuit type, but however that particular lab was too hard to design and was scratched.

Also, for the materials it turns out that we needed to treat this as a real lab experiment, not a simulation. Therefore we needed to list the number of bulbs and other materials we use IN the simulation, not the simulation itself.

However, I believe this new question would work out well. While trying to understand the current, voltage, and resistance, I played around with the simulation until I got all the data.

Week 2: Day 3

Today there is nothing much to report. I am just continuing yesterday's line of work. The progress is still disappointingly slow, but hopefully it will speed up by the time I get on to the other subjects.

I started explaining a lot about Ohm's law in my lab report, which I find the easiest definition for is a law stating that electric current is proportional to voltage and inversely proportional to resistance. It seems to be the key to everything here; it's something that I need to know really well.

Hopefully by next week the lab reports will finally be done- as well as all the videos. Then I'll be ready to take the quiz.

Week 2: Day 2

Today I looked over the lab reports to include the new knowledge from the videos.

There seems to be a lot to change. The question in lab report #1 was how a series circuit's current and voltage relate to one another. I realized the procedure I made did not exactly answer that question; therefore the conclusion was difficult to write.

There were a lot of new screenshots and revisions in the procedure to be made. After the video I realized it was impossible to explain the connection between the two of them without also talking about resistance. Anyone following the lab must have prior knowledge about resistance, current, and voltage, otherwise they won't understand what we're doing.

In the previous procedure I made a series circuit and used to voltmeter to measure the volts. There were no specific sets of data. In the revision of the experiment, there will be detailed tables. I'm going as far as thinking I should revise the variables. I think it would make much more sense for the controlled variable to be "resistance" instead of "type of circuit" since the "type of circuit" is already pretty much given.

I think the rest of this week will be spent revising the lab reports. It is taking much more time than I thought it would, but I suppose since it's our first legit time of designing an experiment it's bound to be tricky. Next week I'll probably finish off the videos. I find that knowing the stuff before we actually experiment on it and figuring it out along the way helps a lot. I guess I won't actually be sticking to the written plan now.

Week 2: Day 1

Today I tried to finish the remnants of last week's work. I tried to complete the lab reports and finish watching some videos. Sadly, I didn't get very far.

I know the basics of current, voltage and resistance, which is enough to understand the lab report. But there is some things that remain unclear. The video cleared up so much that I think I should go back and look at my lab report again.

In class, I watched the video Voltage Current and Resistance - Bozeman Science. It used the simulation to explain about current, voltage, and resistance. Then, I wrote this post to organize my thoughts. 

In last week's post Week 1: Day 1, I wondered why there were some sparks flying when I built a circuit without a resistor. The video cleared that up. Without the resistor, the electrons would basically go fast and out of control. 

The relationship between current, voltage, and resistance can be represented by the analogy of a water tank. The tank holder, where the water remains idle, is the voltage. It's the potential energy of the circuit. The voltage is the water that's actually flowing in the pipes. The resistance is whatever slows down the water- which is important because you don't want to the water to flow too fast and break the pipes, so to speak. The resistance could be the twists and turns or the smaller pipes branching off.

After he explained this, he went on to the simulation. That was when he showed what would happen without a resistor in a simple circuit. Then, he showed the way the voltage, resistance, and current are related.

I thought the way he explained it made more sense than anything else. As I said, I will be looking at my lab report again.

Week 1: Day 3

So far, the first week's pile of work seems to be organized, but it took more time than I thought to finish them all up.

Today, I did Lab #3, which I named Relationships in a Circuit. Here, I explored the relationships between current, voltage, and resistance in a circuit. This activity required previous knowledge- things I recently learnt in the past two activities. I used two simulations for this one. Ohm's law, which I learnt about in Simulation two and had a small introduction in Lab one, was finally understood well. Other things I learnt can be summarized to this:

I found this website very helpful as well. It answered a lot of my questions. I have yet to write a complete lab report, but if there are any questions I need to ask, it'll be useful.

I, however, was not about to complete the lab report from Lab #2, nor did I have any more time at home than the one hour "class" time and a few spare minutes to write this post. Viewing the videos will have to wait. However, I did have a suitable outline for this lab, as well as a focused research question. When I find time I will complete the lab #2 and #3 lab reports and watch the videos.

Next week I will be doing that before I start on Week Two of the possible timeline. The schedule will be pushed back a bit, but now that I have gotten the hang of this, hopefully I will get back on track and pass through things I understand more quickly. This whole unit's estimated time of eight weeks will probably be the same.

Week 1: Day 2

Today, in "class" or rather, at home, I did Lab #2: Resistance. In this activity, I explored resistance in a circuit. The lab was done in the phET simulation, like the first one.

In this activity, I was able to understand more of what was going on than I did in the previous activity. In addition, identifying the variables and coming up with a more focused topic question was easier. However, I find that learning about simple, series, and parallel circuits are more interesting than resistance.

Later, outside the time period of "class" hour, I watched a Youtube video explaining what I did last class and this class. The video gave further insight, especially on resistance. In addition, I went over the lab report I did last class. I decided to submit the three lab reports together, in case there is something I want to add later on. I also did a google search online on resistance, hoping to find some helpful information that will help on the lab report for lab #2.

Before this class, I knew a bit about series and parallel circuits. I did not remember much from previous classes, though. Resistors seemed to be new- or it's something I completely forgot about. Yet it seems essential to the components of a circuit. At first, when I first heard the term "resistor", I wondered why we needed a hindrance in the flow of charge.

In day 3, I will do simulation #3. It would be in another phET simulation. If I complete that early in class time, I should be able to complete the lab report for this class. If not, I will try and do it at home in addition to the lab report for simulation #3. I also did not have the chance to check out the videos on Moodle yet. Hopefully I will be able to do that soon.

Today, however, did not go as productive as I hoped, due to being ill. It is fortunate that it landed on a day without school, though.

Week 1: Day 1

Last class, I experimented with the phET simulation in addition to making this blog. Furthermore, I wrote the last two posts as somewhat of an introduction to this unit.

In class, I got more serious with the phET simulation. I did the activity/lab required number one on the Electricity and Magnetism Unit Outline. It's called the Circuit Flow of Electricity. 

This could be the first real time I successfully designed an experiment (if we forget the baking soda and vinegar lab report we never actually completed). With so many choices to choose from in the broad topic of circuits, it was hard to narrow it to one specific question. However, when we identified the variables, the question was refined enough for us to continue writing the lab report. In this investigation, I explored series and parallel circuits. However, I only did the lab report on the series circuit's current and voltage. 

At home, I completed the lab report.

Today, I learnt about the structure of the series and parallel circuits. I learnt the basics of electricity: current, voltage, etc. The simulation seemed to react like it should in real life, and it was pretty cool to watch what we do affect the results we get. There was one time it caught on fire. It was amusing and fascinating- for further knowledge, I should go see how and why that happened. 

By completing the activity, I should be able to tell the relationship between current and voltage in series circuits. By the end of the week, hopefully I will know the relationship between series and parallel circuits too, as it was not explored fully on the simulation but could be added as an extension.

To learn more about the parallel circuits, I will watch a video later. Next post should be about lab number two in addition to the video. There should also be time to go over the lab report before I submit it.

Need To Know Board: Experiment #2

Design and test a wind generator using simple household and/or laboratory equipment and create a sales pitch/commercial/magazine ad to market your product to families and schools. The design should also be accompanied by a written report (submitted by Google Doc) detailing the science and experiments supporting your design.

1) What do I think I know? 

• Wind turbines are used to generate electricity.
• Wind turbines are environmentally friendly, but they are not our main source of energy.
• Many turbines together are called wind farms.

2) Questions to ask

• How do you transfer energy from a turbine into electricity we use?
• How does a wind turbine work?

3) Topics to Explore

• Wind Turbines
• Circuits
• Renewable Electricity

Need To Know Board: Experiment #1

Design and describe/explain a circuit diagram to show how you would wire all of the lights and appliances (outlets) on one floor of your house.  This should include an investigation of how much power (wattage) each light and appliance uses to determine the total electrical load required.

1) What do I think I know?

• A switch is an on/off. It opens or closes a circuit.

• There are positive and negative charges in electricity and magnetism.

• A circuit needs to be unbroken for electricity to flow.

• Power in electricity is measured in watts.

• Fluorescent lights are more efficient than incandescent.

• Copper can conduct electricity well. Water- and also humans- are conductors.

• Wood are rubber are efficient in stopping energy flow.

• You can use acidic fruits like lemons to turn on a light bulb.

• You can not use a series circuit for both light bulbs to be equally bright; you must use parallel circuits.

2) Questions to ask

• What do you call different types of circuits?

• What are the components of a circuit? 

• How do you build a circuit?

• How much power/wattage is required to light one floor of a house?

• How does the fuse work?

3) Topics to explore

• Wattage

• Conductors

• Voltage

• Battery

• Load/Light Bulb

• Control Device/Switch

• Connecting Wires