Saturday, March 20, 2010

The Foucault's pendulum, Moon phases, and more...

Today in class we were assigned to find out what the Foucault's pendulum is. Ms. D explained what it is and how it works. Here is the definition of the Foucault's pendulum: "The Foucault's pendulum is an instrument devised by a Frech physicist Jean Bernad Leon Foucault in 1851 to prove that the Earth rotates on its axis."

It is a tall pendulum (weight suspended from a pivot so it can move freely) free to move in a vertical plane. The direction it spins rotates with time because of the Earth’s rotation. The pendulum stays going in a straight line, BUT the building it is in is on Earth and the building actually moves with Earth and the swinging pendulum does not.

After this we had to choose 3 themes in astronomy that we would like to work on for a future lab.

20 minutes before the end of the class, Ms. D said that we will start a lab. We had to be with the partner number 7 (on the clock). The Lab purpose is to find out "How the relationship between the sun, Earth and Moon determines moon phases, solar eclipses and lunar eclipses."
5 minutes before the end of the class Ms. D gave to each of us a pencil and a white ball which represented the Moon. There were 4 lamps in the class representing the Sun. What we had to do was to try to put the "Moon" in different positions to see how much light it could reflect on the Earth (us).

Here is a video that describes the Moon Phases.




The Random Question sheet if you don't have the random questions.
http://zagreb.ceesa.net/file.php/106/Random_Science_Questions.doc
More information about the Foucault's pendulum
http://www.animations.physics.unsw.edu.au/jw/foucault_pendulum.html

Also remember

-to check Moodle for homework
-to do you APOD for Tuesday
-to do all you need to do for the blog before the 1st April

(Next scribe is Emma)

10 comments:

  1. Great Scribe post Kamil! You basically covered everything that someone who is sick would need to know! It's easy to understand and you put in extra information for people who might not understand what you were talking about (like me). One thing you could've done better is explain how the Foucault's Pendelum works.

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  2. I like the fact that you added the moving picture, video and links. It made your scribe post ineresting to look at! I think your font is a bit too small and your scribe post could use some more color. Great scribe!

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  3. I liked how you explained what happened in class and what you learned. Also I liked it that you added links and videos about what you're learning. However next time you might want to list the homework more specifically instead of telling that they should 'check Moodle for homework'.

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  4. I think this was a great post! The animation, video and links all just added to the post. One thing you may want to add is an explanation of how the Foucault's pendulum works. All in all, this was a great post.

    Alix Minor Edit #1

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  5. Kamil - you have done a good job with embedding the YouTube video and with your hyperlinks. All of them are helpful to the reader. I do agree with some of the other comments above - more color would have been helpful, better clarity on the homework, and even including hyperlinks to the homework would have helped. Plus a scientific explanation of the pendulum would have been clearer and more helpful. You have not really gone "into" any of the science concepts and what we discussed. Overall, the layout is excellent, but the content needs more effort.

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  6. Ok, try number 3:

    Kamil, I liked your post. The Youtube video was helpful and interesting. However, your photo that you tried to post did not work. I assumed it is a Focault's pendulum so here's a youtube video to help.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlhHWYKswik

    I like the way you don't add annoying or distracting colors in your post. Also, your post is very to-the-point. That makes it easier to read without searching the whole document.

    Thanks for the post!

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  7. Terrific Job! I liked it how you gave a clear and understandable impression of what we had gone through in class. For future blogging, I would recommend you use a greater variety of color seeing as though black is too dull.
    In general, Great Job!

    Emma (minor edit)

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  8. The job that you did is awesome!!! I liked the animation you posted and the video was also very helpful. Keep it up!

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  9. Hey Kamil,

    That animation with the pendulum is really awesome and I think it makes all you write a lot more interesting, also the video is really explanatory. What you should change is the writing's color so the different paragraphs would stand out!

    That's it,

    Cip

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  10. This is very well done kamil. It is very clear, easy to read, and has great information. Also the Youtube video you embedded was VERY helpful. In a quick summary it was a great job, helpful information and a great video!
    Ines
    (Minor edit)

    ReplyDelete