Your thing...

Your thing….

One of my hopes/goals for each of you is to help you realize some freedom in school, and pursue a STEM related interest of choice – something that you will have fun with, and that you want to do simply because you are curious and because you think it will be fun to try. It can be big or small. It can be short-term or longer-term. It can be related to a hobby, or something brand new that you want to explore. This won’t have the pressure of a grade, or any specific deadline.

I hope you will do something, anything, just because you want to!

It is, quite simply, your thing!

There are LOTS of possibilities:

-          Research: mini-projects

-          Research: long-term projects

-          CABS resources (develop online teaching resources for various research options)

-          Work on resources for Australian elementary students (anything related to science or music)

-          Write songs/raps, poems, short stories, animated children’s stories (one example of a story for atomic structure is at http://docvphysics.blogspot.com/p/science.html); may partner with other schools to develop an online depository of STEM resources for elementary classes (Effingham (IL)-Pennsylvania-Australia-ETHS partnership)

-          Interpretive dance of some topic

-          Be pen-pal or Skype-pal with other students around the world (Doc V has many connections for this)

-          Engineering challenges – such as develop a tower garden for under $100 so low income families could use them; 3-D printed prosthetics; solar powered anything; cheap solutions for filtering water for 3^rd world communities

-          Help develop collaborative labs or projects that can be done with students from other schools, other countries

-          Trying to publish research results in journals

-          Build a web site or blog for a topic/issue of interest

-          Rube-Goldberg machines

-          Independent study courses

-          Photo Contest, or develop a site of science-related photos/videos

-          Bridge building

-          Develop ‘How to’ videos for certain problems or topics for other students

-          Video production that can be used in classes; another possibility is to provide video analyses and possibly write up lab procedures for future classes to use; think videos of “The Science of ______” for a favorite hobby or activity or phenomenon

-          Write a white paper on an issue of interest

-          Make your own TED-style talks

-          Learn a programming language

-          Robotics (there are all sorts of kits if you want to try something)

-          Write own programs for simulations, video game

-          Build more complex circuits/devices; take electronics not working and learn about them

-          Lobby your local politicians about science or education related issues

-          Community service – local clean-ups, peer mentoring, peer tutoring, volunteer at your old elementary or middle school  if they do science fairs or need demos

-          Possibilities for online tutoring/mentoring

-          Arrange to tour labs of interest at local univeraities

-          Take a tour of Argonne National Lab or Fermilab (both are only one hour from Evanston)

-          Interview professors/researchers/scientists or engineers in industry/doctors/technicians; could be on video to post and share with others

-          Ask if you can shadow a grad student or professional in STEM for a day

-          Write layperson explanations of technical STEM topics

-          Join Math Team, Science Olympiad, Chess Team

-          Do mathematical derivations of things not covered in classes. One example is at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8nURwQwI2RaamQxT3ZrLWhtOUE/view

-          Build something of interest

-          Develop new science demos, labs, posters, teaching resources for future classes

-          Write letters to the editor of local papers, magazines, journals

-          Take virtual tours of the world’s great science museums and summarize, make recommendations for others
-          Math modeling
-          TEAMS (limited, invited)
-          WYSE (limited, invited)
-          Physics Bowl practice/prep

Or anything else not listed here you can think of and want to try!!!! Don’t limit yourself or your interests!!

Classes for today

Periods 3-4, 8-9:

If any brave souls can volunteer and put up their solutions for the E-fields on the NON-uniform density problems from last night, let's see if we can reach consensus. Remember, these are worst-case Gauss scenarios.

Then there is the reality that not all things we use in electronics are spheres, long cylinders or large plates. There are rings, wires that really do have ends, and so on! You know where this is going....NON-Gauss situations. Check out videos on how we try to approach real objects such as the E-field for charged sticks we used in lab before, as well as finding the potential for a stick.

When done, please work together and try the problems on pages 2 and 3 of the NON-Gauss packet that will be passed out. On the stick problem, page 3, also try to find the potential at the same point shown, in addition to the E-field.




Period 6:

Let's pull out your Chromebooks, and check out a Khan video on the types of problems we are starting to try and solve, those with acceleration. Anything we do with constant acceleration will use the three formulas on the sheet we got yesterday. For any type of problem like this, it is a good idea to list out the information we are given in a problem, such as distance traveled, initial speed, final speed, the time traveled, and the acceleration value. Some of these will be known, and one or two not known in any given problem - but we have the three sets of relationships that will help us out, so we can find any of the unknowns.

So watch a video on how we can do this to try and figure out the acceleration of a plane launching off an aircraft carrier. Take notes on it. This will be a guide for doing the couple problems on the third page of our packet from yesterday. After watching the video, try the problems with one or two classmates, and have them ready for Wednesday. These will be typical, everyday sorts of situations that we can use the three equations over and over and over again, to predict what will happen when acceleration is involved.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry Announced this morning!

The Nobel Prize for chemistry was given to three scientists this morning, for their work and creation of cryo-electron microscopy. They are an American, Joachim Frank; a Swiss, Jacques Dubochet; and a Brit, Richard Henderson. Their work and revolutionary imaging has helped make high-resolution images of biomolecules in action.These images are also 3-D, moving away from old 2-D imaging techniques. Researchers can freeze molecules in mid-movement, providing snapshots of complex processes so they can be understood with entirely new levels of precision. This should help in drug treatment development, studying aging, addictions, cancer development, and so on. Very cool, literally and figuratively! :-)

Are we going to be able to see black holes? Perhaps soon!

While black holes cannot be directly seen, since light cannot be emitted through the event horizon of the black hole, it may be possible to see the so-called accretion disk, a hot, rotating region of hot gas and plasma that is trapped by the gravity of a black hole, and which could come from the immediate environment as well as a companion binary star near the black hole. There is some new telescope technology that should be able to see accretion disks, and this new experiment is called the Event Horizon Telescope. This tool, along with the rapidly growing field of gravitational wave detectors like LIGO and others that are being built, could be opening the door to a new branch of astronomy that complements astronomy with electromagnetic radiation.

Nobel Prize in Physics - LIGO and Gravitational Waves!!

Congratulations to three Americans who won the Nobel Prize in Physics, 2017, for their pioneering work in testing and confirming Einstein's general relativity prediction of gravitational radiation! The Nobel committee recognized Kip Thorne, Rainer Weiss, and Barry Barish for their efforts in creating the LIGO experiment. BTW, a key senior scientist on this experiment is NU professor Vicky Kalogera.

2017 Nobel Prize in Medicine & Physiology

Congratulations to three Americans, who were recognized by the Nobel committee for their work in understanding our biological clock, and what makes our circadian rhythms so vital to our lives! They are Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael Young.