Week 1 Blog

1. The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did.
During our lab I feel as though we covered 2 really big questions. These questions are how can we ensure students are learning science as well as why is it important that they learn science and the second question being how can we ensure a race is exciting. For the first question we talked in our groups about the different aspects of a playground and how science can be related outside while they are playing as well as inside in the classroom. For the second question, we watched videos about the question and then proceeded to go into our groups to experiment with how we can ensure a race is exciting. For my group we chose a distance of 8m and began to time ourselves to see how long it would take to walk 8m for each person. We then chose a walker when talking to the other group as we learned one of our group mates could walk a meter a second! This made the math easy to figure out what kind of head start she might need when competing against another class mate.

2. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture.
During lecture on Thursday we went over a few things. To start off, we briefly went over some topics we talked about on Monday. This was answering the question of how to support play that is exciting but not dangerous. After this we went over the NGSS for the lesson at hand as well as the ideas of what we would talk about next. Finally we ended class with learning the equation of speed equals distance over time. We got to put this into example by figuring out 2 different problems of what head start each example should get based off of the distance and time. We ended lecture by talking about the patterns that are important to notice when talking about motion.

3. Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading.
In the Pressbook reading on "Describing and Measuring Motion," I learned about the fundamental concepts related to motion, including how motion is described in terms of distance, displacement, speed, velocity, and acceleration. I also learned about how motion is measured using units like meters and seconds and how velocity differs from speed because it includes direction. The most helpful part of the reading was the clear explanation of the differences between speed, velocity, and acceleration. The examples and visuals really helped me within these explanations. I need more information on how to apply these concepts to real-world problems, especially when it comes to calculating acceleration and understanding its implications in different contexts. One question I have is about the practical applications of these concepts in everyday life. For example, how do these principles of motion apply to things like sports or transportation systems? I'd also like to know more about the historical development of these concepts.