3 Chem/Phys Summer Camp

The new school year is almost upon us. And let's not hide the fact that everyone - students, teachers, parents, administrators - are some combination of nervous, scared, angry, confused, anxious, depressed, relieved, and fill in your own emotion. 

Our approach is more along the lines of developing a mindset that we are not just a class, but a learning team. We are more than classmates, we are teammates. We support each other, help each other, cheer for each other. We feel bad when another is having a bad day and try to help. We feel good when everyone 'gets it' and does well. 

This is a challenging time for everyone, so let's help each other not because some teacher wants you to...let's all actually want to help each other on our own! Let's be caring, thoughtful, compassionate and empathetic human beings who find meaning and joy in helping others through challenges. 

Class Information

You will be getting Google Classroom course numbers to sign in by the time school begins. In fact, all of your teachers will have a Google Classroom when school begins. In Physics, we will not only use Classroom, but Doc V also has the key class and unit documents housed on his school website (with Unit folders on the 3 Chem-Phys page), as well as this class blog. Check out the various pages on both the website and this blog, where there is all sorts of information not only used or class, but dozens of academic teams and extracurricular options each of you will be able to pursue if interested the next two years. 

TODAY - MONDAY, AUG. 3

We are going to break off in the Summer Camp and give you a bit of time to try a couple things asynchronously! Get used to this, because that combination of 'synchronous' Zoom class sessions and 'asynchronous' independent work will be the norm in every one of your classes. By the way, this is more like a college or adult work schedule than what you are used to in school. 

This means you have more individual control over your schedule, but also more individual responsibility for your own learning! 

To Try:

• Spend about 10 minutes to skim through the Physics website and the Physics blog. Begin to get a sense of resources, topics, activities, history, and so on. Perhaps something will already jump out at you and seem interesting! Make note of anything like this, and we can chat about it later. 

• At any time, post questions and what has been effective and not effective for you during elearning to this Google Sheet. Or you can email us separately if you don't want to share publicly. 

• Try a basic at home lab about rotational speed. You need to be logged into your eths202 account to access. We will try some of these throughout the year when we are remote. For this one, you can find any kind of sphere, any kind of disk or cylinder (like a full can of something), and if possible, a ring or hollow cylinder (like an empty can with both ends cut out). These are all objects that can roll, and you can do experiments to see if they all make it down a ramp in the same time and have the same speed at the bottom of the ramp. You did not do rotational motion last year, so this will be a new set of discoveries for you based on experimental information! 
• Our first website recommendation for the year! Check out a 3D version of the Powers of 10 video, which shows the range of smallest things to the largest! Very cool! 

Thank you for joining us today, and I cannot wait to get to know you and work with you!!