Project: Let's Make Physics Real!
Resources Needed: 4 inclined planes, 4 carts, 4 horizontal bench pulleys, 4 centripetal force apparatus, a spring set, a i" lead ball
School Poverty Level: Highest
Location: Baker High School, Mobile, AL
Total Cost: $607.24 (Our Original Starting Amount)
Still Needed: $300.69 $130.69
Expires: Sep 26, 2014
Teacher's Comments from Mrs. Bermudez:
My Students: I am a math teacher who will be teaching AP Physics and Mechanics for the first time next school year. I am so excited to be teaching such a hands-on course for the next generation of engineers and scientists! To make this possible, we need basic lab dynamics lab equipment to perform experiments.
Our school is Title 1 and has a significant proportion of low-income and high risk students. However, you will not meet a more motivated group of kids to continue their education past high school. Despite their income disparities, the class of 2014 earned over $14 million in scholarships! Our students strive to move onward and upward, taking a significant amount of honors and AP courses to make themselves even more successful after high school.
My Project: I am requesting basic dynamics lab equipment that our school currently lacks. Any science classroom is all about experiments and the scientific method - so to have a successful physics course, we need the proper equipment. Accompanied with the calculators, accelerometers, and motion detectors we currently own, the physics equipment I am requesting will be used for experiments on 2D and 3D motion, Newton's laws, friction, force, impulse and momentum, centripetal motion, and energy. The equipment I am requesting will not be used in my classroom only, but throughout the science and math departments to illustrate ideas and perform experiments. Students will learn how to perform real experiments and about the scientific method, learning to judge their mistakes and making "laws" and "theories" more concrete and hands-on.
As a math and physics teacher, my classroom is not a place to theorize and wonder "When will I ever use this?" Instead, we get into action, explore, and make every concept relevant and useful to each student. With this equipment, we will be able to do more experiments, help kids understand the science and mathematics in physics better, and hopefully inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists.
The goal of the project is primarily two fold. First we intend to reinforce the Introduction to Physics that some of the students will have already had during the regular year and to introduce new material to others who have not had the exposure. Second we intend to counteract the negative academic effects of not attending school during the Summer; to keep the students engaged in academic endeavors.
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