Email from Dr. Rossiter

We are altering the final schedule to accommodate the school closing of 12-16 and 12-17. Please note the following:

Monday December 20 will be a final review day. It will be a seven period day.

Tuesday December 21 will be a final day as scheduled: Finals 2, 4, 5, 6

Holiday break December 22 through January 2

Monday January 3, (or the first day back if bad weather) will be a final review day. In advisory this day teachers will be passing out second semester schedules for students.

Tuesday January 4 (or the second day back if bad weather) will be the finals that were originally scheduled for Monday December 17: Finals 1, 3, 5, 7

Wednesday January 5 (or the third day back...) will be the official beginning of second semester

Note further bad weather can change this as you all are aware

12/16... and 12/17.. no school and ECLIPSE

The astronomy test (the final) will be bumped to next semester; I was planning on spending at least 1.5 more weeks on content there so it will be your first test next semester.

Plan on just taking your cumulative exam on the day the final was scheduled for.

Also, please bring your composition book to class when you come in this week; I would like to add in lab points for all classes and give grades a bit of a boost. ;)

Eclipse data:

NASA page with details

What this means: we will see the (full) moon rise in the early evening. As the moon's revolution around the Earth is on a ~25 hour cycle, the moon gets a little farther "behind" the sun's apparent path in the sky a bit every day. As it lags behind the sun on Monday night, the moon will fall behind part of Earth's shadow (its Penumbra) and then its Umbra (total shadow, where there is no straight -line path for light between any part of the Sun and the Moon).

--> This doesn't mean that the Moon will be completely black though, as is the case with the Earth during a solar eclipse. The difference is that the Moon has no atmosphere, and the Earth does.

We'll get to the reason later, but when light passes through Earth's atmosphere at an angle, it gets bent inward and kind of wraps part way around the Earth. This is why we experience the effect of dusk - it's not a sudden darkening or brightening of the Earth at sunrise or sunset.

Anyhow, some light gets bent around the Earth and will hit the Moon. The cool thing is that this light passes a LONG way through Earth's atmosphere and most colors of light get scattered by our atmosphere along the way (the high energy ones, toward the blue/violet end of the spectrum). At the other end, the light that gets scattered the least is... you guessed it, Red! (ROYGBIV) This dim red light will manage to get bent around the Earth, other colors get mainly filtered out by scattering, and we'll see the Moon lit by a dim red glow, less and less as the Moon is closest to the center of Earth's Umbra.

When do I look? Technically, the eclipse will begin being visible at around 11:30 PM but 12:30am marks when the moon will start entering the Earth's Umbra and getting noticeably darker. The moon will be totally within the Earth's umbra from about 1:45 to 2:45am, and will be at greatest eclipse (darkest and closest to the center of the Earth's umbra) at 2:15am. By about 5am, the moon will have passed completely out of Earth's penumbra and will appear normal again.

12/13-15

We have continued in studying astronomy this week; how planets were discovered, learning specifics about the sun, sunspots, flares, and Earth's aurora, and today at relative sizes of planets and distances from the sun, plus a bit about how we know how far things are. Notes have been kept up to date online here.
Friday (rain, snow, or ice tomorrow) we'll have our cumulative exam. If school gets cancelled Friday, count on taking the cumulative exam and bumping the astronomy exam (taking in lieu of the final) to January. It's more of a quiz anyway that I was going to give you on the finals day - we're not done with the unit.

Some study materials:
Objectives list from this semester (excludes Astronomy)
Work and simple Machines TGT review game
Energy TGT review game
unit 2 review
more from unit 2
All of your old tests - questions and answers given to you. <-- these questions will be copied EXACTLY for the cumulative exam. No new questions whatsoever.
No, that's not a link, you were told to write down any questions you missed in your notes on the days after a test, plus the correct answers (they were given to you). You also had the option to come by after school to write down any/all questions and answers from each test, after being reminded that you would see them again. Look at this as the ultimate study guide, and it was given to you. If you failed to follow instructions here, you're missing out on having the easiest test ever. This is a place to improve next semester; pay attention to what you miss on an exam and learn from it; don't miss it twice.

12-10

Today we discussed last night's reading, Mars specifically. We also went over the homework problems.
Notes today covered absorption and emission spectra, you got to see the difference in light emission of fluorescent lights and natural sunlight with the spectroscope.
We also covered the doppler effect and what it tells us about other stars and the expansion of the universe.
Homework over the weekend? Study - we have two tests coming up.
Upcoming exams: Cumulative Exam Next Friday, the 17th- covers ALL content from previous tests. In fact, every question on this test comes from a previous test, all of which you have had the chance to copy down questions and answers from. so there is no excuse not to get an A on this... you were given the questions and answers on this exam.
Final exam: (depends on your class, but the 20th/21st) This will be over Astronomy. Those of you who are exempt from the final requirement will still take this exam. You will, however, not be penalized if the exam would hurt you.
Next homework assignment: Read chapter 8, section 3. Due Tuesday.

12-8

Today we discussed a bit of the reading from last night (how we know what we know about the solar system) and took notes on:
Time (as we view it)
The Electromagnetic Spectrum: Waves
Tomorrow we'll relate the things we've learned about waves to some pretty awesome discoveries about our Sun and to the universe (Hubble).
Homework tonight is to read chapter 8, section 2, and problems; p.212#1-19

12-8

Today we discussed our Moon; activities included:
-Looking at photos of the Moon in different phases, locations in the sky, and involving other planets. We saw in photos: Earthshine (the effect of Earth's reflection lighting the unlit part of a new or nearly new Moon), different apparent colors of the Moon when low on the horizon (due to light passing through a thicker layer of our atmosphere), and the relationship between the Sun's location and the portion of the Moon that's illuminated.
-Notes on our Moon and tides
-Reading about the ocean's tides and how they have locked the Moon into rotating exactly once as it revolves, and how the tides are (slowly) locking the Earth into orbit with the Moon straight over one point on the Earth. (will take millennia)
-Demonstrations of phases of the Moon with flashlight
-Practice on test bonus questions about the moon and telling if it's rising or setting, plus the time of day.
Homework for tonight / Friday:
Read chapter 8, section 1 tonight
Read chapter 8, section 2 AND work p.212#1-19 by Friday

12-7 (Pearl Harbor Day)

Today we took notes on the Sun and discussed the reading/homework from the weekend regarding the Earth's motion, time, and seasons as it rotates and revolves. Some classes didn't get to go over the answers to the homework due to the fire alarm; we will do this tomorrow.
Tonight's homework: Read Chapter 7, section 3 (Earth's Moon). Be ready to discuss tomorrow.

12-6

Today we went over the exam; it looked good for most people. Grades to be posted this afternoon and will be available in class tomorrow.
Notes from today involve Geo/Helio centric views of our little part of the universe. A summary of what was covered here. (future notes parts of this document will be edited as we cover them and I change content from last year.)
Remember to read chapter 7, sections 1 &2 by tomorrow and do the problems associated with them (see Friday's post)

12-3

Exam today; I will probably not post grades to EdLine until Monday.
Today all students (hopefully) got codes for them to access grades on EdLine. Remember when you set it up to sign up for text notifications - the school will be using this instead of the old text alert system in the event of school closings, which is nice to know before you get ready for school.

After the exam, I explained the drinking bird phenomenon; you can see another explanation here.

Homework is as follows:
Read p.186-195
P.189#1,3,4,6
p.195#2-6
Due Tuesday

As you'll notice in the reading, we are starting Astronomy. We have a cool event to look forward to, luckily on the night/morning before the last day of school... (here) Hopefully you don't have too many hard tests that day - I know I'll be watching the eclipse quite a bit during the night.

Thursday, 12-2

Exam Tomorrow! Covers Work, power, percent efficiency, machines, etc. AND new material on Thermal Energy. (Chapter 6 and chapter 9, section 1-3)

I handed out a list of topics for the full semester today and the back side is all focused on this exam. If you missed it, there is a link to it under Monday or Tuesday's post. Good idea to start studying; we have a comprehensive exam at the end of the month PLUS a final. Everyone takes the comprehensive exam. Final depends on attendance, and is optional if you don't have to take it.
Today we finished notes in some classes on convection, conduction, and radiation, discussed some of last night's reading, some classes had a pop quiz, and we saw demonstrations on:

-Is water a conductor? (what happens when you heat it from the top?) (bottom stays cool - no, not a very good conductor... we will see if it conducts electricity later...)

-radiation with a radiometer

-insulating values of a styrofoam cup vs. paper

-bimetallic strips and thermal expansion

-ball and loop

Tomorrow you'll learn the magic of the drinking bird phenomenon that seems to go on forever.

Want study materials??

Here's a T/G/T review that we didn't do in class but you can do on your own: here

Here's another link to our list of topics: here

A practice of the math involved in chapter 6: Sorry for the images; I couldn't find my digital versions and didn't have time to re-do them: below.

Click on the pictures to enlarge and print if needed.

Tuesday-Wednesday, 11/30-12/1

Tuesday we had pop quizzes for most classes over the reading from Monday night. Most students did poorly; either showing not getting much out of the reading, not taking time to read thoroughly, or not reading at all.
We also had notes on Specific Heat, the resistance to temperature change of a substance. I likened specific heat to "Thermal Inertia".
I demonstrated specific heat of water vs. a metal weight; we added 500g of (hot) water to one 400mL room temperature jar of water, and we added a (hot) 500g metal weight to another 400mL of room temperature jar of water. We monitored the temperature of each 400mL of water, and found that the 500g of hot metal hardly had an effect on the water's temperature, but the 500g of hot water DID change the room temperature water substantially.
Therefore water has a higher resistance to temperature change, or a higher Specific Heat.

Water actually has one of the highest specific heats of common materials. Only a few are higher.
Homework tonight:
Read p. 266-270

Study for Friday's Exam!!!!! There will be no math from the thermal energy unit assessed on this exam, however math from work, power, percent efficiency, etc. WILL be assessed.