🚀 go-pugleaf

Steve,

I want to thank you for sharing the Trip to school project with me. I didn't
send the results to you because I felt like the results I got were not in a form
that would have been helpful to your students. By the time we got the corrected,
it was part the time you would have been covering the info in class. It was a
great project and my students learned a great deal and I hope our next attempt
will be of higher quality.

I have been trying to do some spreadsheet activities with my physics classes. I
have tried two things that have been very successful. The first was using
eatimated erro on measurements. I had the students measure the dimensions of a
cylinder with a metric ruler, then a vernier caliper, and then a micrometer
caliper. In the spreadsheet, the set up three colums for each measurement-one
with their measured value , one with the setimated error low value , and one
with the estimated error high value. Then the calculated volume with each set of
values.They then graphed the volumes comparing the reported value calculation
with the high and low value calculation. What they could then see clearly was
the spread in values that the estimated error caused in a value calculated with
measured quantities. They then compared the accuracy of the measuring devices in
the same way and saw the spread of values get smaller as the precision of the
instrument increased.

The second spreadsheet was using the distance formula for an accelerating object
ant setting up colums for time, distance and final velocity calculations.  The
values for acceleration could be changed as well as initial position and
velocity. Once the spreadsheet was created, I gave them a list of questions they
used with the spreadsheet to answer. They seemed to get a lot out of this and
did very well on the test. I hope to develop more. I have a book you might want
to find...it's called Dynamic Models In Physics- A Workbook of Computed
Simulation Using Electronic Spreadsheets. I had the university bookstore order
it for me --ISBN 0-9622556-1-0. There is also one for Chemistry.

I would love to stay in touch this year and share ideas if you are willing.

Thanks for your help.

Patty Blanton
blantonp@conrad.appstate.edu
Impact NC program
Watauga High School
Boone, NC 28607