Mrs. Chase has made our Physics class fun and exciting due to the fun and interesting labs which we have done. Unlike many years in the past, I have been actually able to create my own experiments for some of the labs--they simply require us to show support for some concept. In addition, we have been able to cover a lot of topics at fast speeds (while deeply understanding them), to prepare us for both AP Physics C tests come May. We do both individual and group work, allowing us to develop skills by ourselves but also ask each other for help when needed.
Being our first lab of the year, this was pretty straightforward. In small groups, we had to show the influence of gravity on an object. We did this through two, smaller experiments. One of them used a cart on a slope, while the other used a battery-operated toy car on a flat surface. The challenge of this lab was doing enough trials and timing correctly, as they both moved quite fast! Using the data that we obtained, we averaged, calculated, and graphed to support our claim.
A neat lab which we did investigated the effects of different forces. As aforementioned, we had the chance to design the experiment in groups. My group decided to use rectangular blocks with different materials lining their faces. We wanted to see if two sides, which were made of the same material yet different in size, would have the same amount of friction. An interesting part of the lab was that after the experiment, we had to individually create a writeup less than a page long. It was a challenge to fit all of the needed information, but I was able to successfully show that friction is not based on surface area!