Balloon Rocket Challenge and Newton's 1st, 2nd & 3rd Laws of Motion

Hello to everyone!

Thursday the 27th and Friday the 28th were busy classes for us!

Thursday began with Ms.D checking our homework which was to take notes about Newton's 2nd and 3rd Laws. When she was done checking she put on the board a word document with all the notes that should have been taken, and we all went over them, adding what we didn't have because we will later take a test, and we should know these things. In case you didn't know or weren't there, here are the notes;

Newton's First Law of Motion-

• An object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion at a constant velocity (speed + direction) will stay in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
• It tells us that force is needed for acceleration.
• It is friction that causes moving objects to stop, not the removal of force.
• Examples:
• - When you are in a moving car and it stops suddenly you fall backwards.
• - When you are in a moving car and you go around a sharp turn quickly, you bump into the side of the car.
• Newton's First law of Motion is mostly Inertia.

Ms. D also said to be sure to have the definition of Inertia written down.

Inertia-

• Inertia- The tendency for objects at rest to stay at rest.
• The more mass an object has, the more inertia it has, and the more force required to move it is needed.

Newton's second Law of Motion-

• The main concept is- Mass * Acceleration. (F= ma)
• Explains how force and acceleration are related.
• More force = more acceleration for any given object.
• If you push something harder, it will go faster. ( example- if you push a grocery cart harder, it will move faster.)
• The objects with more mass (or more inertia) require more force applied to move them. (example- a cart with more groceries will require more force).
• The unit used for force is Newton
• - 1N= 1 kg (mass) * 1 m/s/s (acceleration)
• - 1N is how much force is needed to accelerate 1kg at a rate of 1 m/s/s.

Ms.D suggests you write the examples down or remember them. She also wrote that you need to be able to use the formula F=ma to perform calculations and explain everyday situations. She then WARNED that the next challenge is going to need and use MASS.

Newton's Third law of Motion

• For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
• In other words forces come in pairs (push-pull)
• All objects exert forces (even if it doesn't seem like it)
• Example;
• - When you are standing on the floor, you exert a force back on you (remember, only balanced forces result in no movement).

When we were done taking notes, Ms. D made us find 4 groups, with every group having 3 people in it, for our lab.

When that was done and Ms.D agreed, these where the groups that came out;

• Jakub, Ghazaleh, and Maria Chiara.
• Davide, Courtney, and Karin.
• Nathan, Ben, and David.
• Tamara, Valentina, and Emilija.

Ms.D then went further into explaining that out lab, or challenge, is that we have to make a Rocket Balloon with the following things;

• 2 straws,
• a piece of string,
• 2 Big Balloons,
• Tape.

This is a model of what can be made out of these objects.

She then told us that if we wanted to add any other objects to the testing we first had to ask her.

We will have a race on February 10th, were we will test our balloons depending on the race we choose our Balloons to run for.

These were the choices;

• The Balloon that went the furthest.
• The Balloon that went the fastest.
• The Balloon that went Up and back down, turned.

She then gave us black balloons to work and begin testing our labs. Unfortunately the black balloons didn't work well, but we still began.

On Friday we continued with the testing, but Ms.D brought bigger Balloons that stretched farther. She then gave a suggestion which was to measure the Balloon's circumference once it reached the right form that you wanted, and make all of them the same to make the science more correct.

She also began telling us some CVs and UVs, which are the following;

CVs-

• The length of the string for the fastest and farthest, (which is 15m) and the length of the string for the changing direction (4m)
• Only 2 Balloons are used.
• Only 2 straws are used.
• The Balloons have the same diameter each time.
• The same person from the group measures distance.
• The same person from the group uses stop watch and times the speed.
• The same person from the group lets the balloon go.
• The same straws and balloons are used during the testing unless something occurs to prevent that.

UVs-

• If the balloon stretches.
• If the straw bends.
• If the string bends or the knot loosens.

These aren't the only ones, but they are the only ones we discussed in class. That was it for the two days, and no homework was given except to think of what the balloon's shape could be, and what we could change or add to the rockets to improve them!

Hope you enjoyed reading my blog and the next scriber is....DRUM ROLL......GHAZALEH!

Karin and davide attaching the balloon to the

straws.

Tamara moving the string to the opposite

side when the testing was finished.

Davide and karin preparing for the testing, Karin blowing the ballooon up and davide taking out the string.

3rd Quarter Scribe List

Jakub

Ben

Valentina

Davide

Karin

Emilija

David

Courtney

Tamara

Nathan

Chiara

Ghazaleh

Valentina's Reflection Post for Second Quarter

Hello to everyone,

During this Quarter the 7th grade class has made a blog, and each of the students in the class was able to be the scriber for the blog. During my blog post, I made many errors, and recieved many ideas of what I could have added, what I should have improved, and what I had done well.
Some of these things were the following:

Thing I should have improved-

• 
  One of the biggest errors I made was that I forgot to put the lables at the end.
• I accidentaly posted my first blog on last year's sixth grade blog.
• The writing turned out to have come in different fonts, and I should havemade a preview to make sure that didn't happen.
• One picture of some astronauts in space was incorrect with the subject and the lable.
• I also wrote that the TBB was measured in Newtons, while it was measured in mass in grams.
• I should have added other links.
• People didn't like that I wrote "YOUR CHOICE" on the lab answers.
• I should have been more clear with my paragraph.
• Some of my grammar wa incorrect.
• I could have separated more the paragraphs that didn't match to make it look neater.
• I should have added more color to the blog
• There was no date of when tha class had been.
• There was no real title.
• The title that I included was wrong because it said "Thursday's class" when I should have written the main topic of the class.
• I could have included more scientific words and vocabulary.\
• I forgot to put periods.

Things that I did well-

• 
  The reader liked most of the pictures because it helped the reader understand.
• There was a link to moodle.
• I gave the definitions of the words we studied in class.
• People liked that I added that mass does not equal weight.
• I included the directions of the lab and what we part we had already done with the answers.
• People liked that I included the purpose question.
• I added well the important information.
• I explained what we did in class.
• The post was long and easy to read.
• I explained well mass, gravity, The law of Gravitation, and weight.
• My science was explain and wrote well.
• People enjoyed how I put all the notes we were supposed to take in class so they could go over them.
• The blog was detailed and thoroght.
• The pictures (mostly) matched the meaning.

I want to improve my scribe post for the next quarter by spending more time on it, and checking that all of the font, pictures, spelling and colors come out how they are supposed to look like. I also want to improve the science and I want to ask a friend to ceck it and tell me if it understandable. Also, I think that I could add some videos that explain what we did in class. I also want to take pictures during the class, and I want to add more detail of the day. I also want to improve by scribe post by doing it before time, ans changing it eventually if I did major mistakes. I will for sure add lables and I will put a better title. I want to make the blog more interesting by finidng people's results if we have a lab, or asking people their oppininon on the class. Finally, and most of all, I want to put a lot more effort in it.

This blog has had some very good points and some worse points. The main problem was that some of the comments were too harsh, without compliments, and I think that another problem was that the comments didn't seem realistic because they were only based on the instructions and what we were supposed to do, so they seemed unrealistic. But there were also many good affects of this blog. For example, I liked the fact that the whole class was involved, because the students were able to add something the blogger might have forgotten. Also, it made the blog a meeting place, were it became a weekly hbitude, and when someone was sick, the blog always told exactly what had happned and what could have been improved.

Overall I really enjoyed doing this blog and comment because they were interesting and helped anyone with science and with improving whatever they needed!!

Davide's Reflection Post

Hi everyone,

According to me, blogging was fun, even though it sometimes put a lot of pressure on me since it was graded. I found it very helpful to use when I was sick, and found that commenting on other people's post is a lot of fun! I found out that even receiving comments is very helpful. For example, when I first published by Scribe Post, I made many mistakes, which I corrected thanks to all of the comments that 7^th and 8^th graders wrote. Here are the suggestions and compliments that I received:

Things I should improve:

• Put labels
• Put more pictures
• Put more color
• Put the title
• Better spelling
• Focus a bit more on the questions that we have for homework
• Re-check it before posting it
• Find a better YouTube link

Things I did well (once I corrected it):

• Good pictures
• Good link
• Good color
• Explaining the pictures
• Covered what we did in class

Thanks to all of you that commented on my post. Without those comments, I couldn’t have improved it! Doing a post can be fun, because you get to think about what you did in your class, and write it down for other people to see. Though, it can be a problem, since sometimes you either have a „blackout“, where you don't remember anything, or you are too stressed out. Overall, though, I found blogging a good exercise to remember what we did in class. I am excited about doing it again next quarter! I will try to do all of the suggestions that 7^th and 8^th graders told me, and I hope my post will be better and more interesting to read next quarter! J

Jakub's Reflection Post

Hi everyone!
For my first scribe post of the year I got 8 comments. Usually my comments to my first post this year were good things, but there were also bad things. Most of my comments that people wrote were true and will help me with the next scribe post that we're going to do in the 3rd quarter.

Things I didn't do well:

• add more pictures
• a working link to the moodle-site
• make the font a bit nicer
• add more about why velocity is not the same as speed
• put links to other scientific websites
• put an example of how to solve all the questions to the answers that I put
• the formula for acceleration should have been in a separate paragraph
• put headlines for each paragraph
• hyperlink the link to the Moodle page
• explain what "vf", "vi", and "t" represent
• use scientific vocabulary
• make the post more understandable
• explore some new information that would be helpful to this topic
• include the date of the class in an overall title
• make it less boring
• put a diagram or really anything for this topic
• explain the science more clearly
• explain the meaning of the letters in your formulas
• make references so that it is easier to understand

Things I did well:

• organizing my blog very well
• colored important words
• explained the meaning of the words really good
• I had the cheetah picture that represents velocity
• the answers to the hw
• good combination of green and purple colors
• explanation of what we had to study for the quiz
• very easy to read and understand
• detailed post
• spelling/grammar
• different sections were seperated well
• included a link to Moodle
• good use of scientific stuff

Next quarter I will improve my scribe post by adding more hyperlinks, pictures, and a video (if it has something to do with my post). I will also try to use suggestions from the comments that people wrote for me. I will also try to use more scientific vocabulary and to make it clear I will try to use more detail.
Sometimes the blog was difficult to do, but other times it was fun. The commenting on other people's posts and writting the good and bad things that they did was interesting and fun to do. I didn't really like doing my own scribe post because sometimes I just stopped writting and thought of what I should write to make it interesting and understandable. The other thing is that you want it to be really good so that you could get a good grade and the could make you really nervous. But the blog can help you in many ways. It could help you if you missed a day in school and you wondered what the rest of the class was doing. Also, if you for some reason forget your homework, you can go to the blog (like when you go to Moodle) to see what it is and understand how to do it and when it's due.
Overall, the blog was sometimes useful, and I hope that it will be the same for the next quarter!

Ghazaleh's Refletion Post for 2nd Quarter

There are many reasons that I like posting and also there are reasons that I don’t like posting. The reasons that I do like posting is when you miss a class you can go and find out what did we learn and what did Ms.D teach us that day. Or the other reason that I like posting is that you can sea other links that can maybe teach you something else a bout the thing that we learned in the class.

The reason that I don’t like blogging is because sometimes it cannot copy and paste, it does it not hyperlink it self. The thing that I really don’t like about blogging is that it takes to much time and it doesn’t do spell check for you and this are all the thing that I like about blogging and I don’t like about blogging.

I think next time when I am blogging the thing that I have improved is:
1. Use more colors
2. Put links and more photos
3. I check my spelling and my grammar
4. And include more scientific words

The things that I did well are:
1. Included an appropriate amount of detail
2. I included some pictures

The thing that I have to improved next quarter is to put effort and take more time. Check my spelling and grammar. For sure put more pictures and put likes and remember t9o hyperlink my links for sure. The thing I would like to for next time is to use more scientific word and use more colors to make it much nicer and clear.

Chiara's Reflection Post

Hi- In my post there were good and bad things. I could improve better my grammar and ask for help about the game. Reading every body comment I learn:

• Many sentence do mot make sense
• I could've more about balanced and unbalanced forces
• I should check my spelling better
• The labels were wrong
• Next time I will hyperlink every link
• some picture didn't have any think to do with it


What other people liked about my post:

• The good chose of color
• The Pictures

For next quarter I will improve all of this. I didn't do well the grammar, but I did it well the chose of color and not all the pictures. Next quarter I will improve the entire think that I listed that were bad. I think that the benefit of the blog is that when you are sick or you miss science class you can understand what they did. I didn't like the facts that you need to comment also grade 8th.

Nathan's Reflection Post

I was one of the earlier ones to do my scribe post, and I received many good suggestions of what to improve on for my next scribe post. Here are some things that people talked about in their comments about what I did good on, and what I should do better on next time.

Things I did good:

• Good use of color
• Understandable
• Using an example of one of the sample calculations
• Listing the DV and IV
• Nice layout
• Grammar/Spelling
• Font

Things I need to improve on:

• More details
• More pictures
• Clarity
• Longer post
  
• More use of links/hyperlinks
• Shorter sentences
• More scientific vocabulary

Next quarter I will try to improve my scribe post by adding more hyperlinks, pictures, and maybe a video. I will also try to use suggestions from the comments that people have given me, and fix my post using them. I will try to use more detail to make it clear and use more scientific vocabulary.
Although the blog has been difficult, it has been fun to do sometimes. Commenting on other people posts and comparing their good and bad suggestions has been interesting and fun to do. But I didn't really like doing the scribe post on the blog because I did sometimes hit a wall and would wonder what I should say. Plus, you really want it to be good so you can get a good grade, and that can put pressure on you and make you nervous. But the blog can be very beneficial in many ways. It will help when you miss a day of class, and you wonder what your classmates did. Also, if you forget your homework, you can use this along with Moodle to understand how to do it and when it is due.
Overall, the blog has been very useful at times, and I hope that will be the same for next quarter.

Reflection Post

We all had a chance to write and make corrections on our blog posts as well as comment on others. As I read through the comments on my blog I understood that I had to improve my blog posting by 3rd Quarter.

Here are some of my errors:

• Should use captions for pictures
• More scientific data
• Formula for finding average speed (an example)
• Under labels write "Scribe Post"
• Write the Title and use Subtitles
• More colored font
• A formula for speed

Here are some good things:

• I had pictures
• Good spelling and grammar
• Links to different sites
• Hyperlink the sites
  

For the 3rd quarter I will definitely improve my blog posts by including the above mentioned suggestions and trying to make them clearer to read and more fun.

I like blogging because when you are absent, or you forget your notebook you can see what homework there is to do, or what you missed that day. I would like to do blogging again, because it was lots of fun commenting on other people’s blog posts and also reading the comments that they posted for you. The thing that I don’t like about blogging is that when were you write a comment it some times deletes it and it does not do spell check while on Word it does.

Karin's Reflection Post

For my first scribe post of the year I got thirteen comments. All of them told me I did a good job but told me how I could improve it. The most commonly used correction was pictures and scientific vocabulary. Also people told me that they liked the color purple and that they liked my picture. Most people liked how I explained formula-plug-chug (the three step method for solving math problems). Though I could have al lot more improvements. Next time I will:

• Use more pictues
• put more links
• hyperlink
• use more scientific vocabulary
• make a longer post
• put definitions
• use videos
• explain what we did in class in more detail.
• put labels the first time

Things I did right:

• I used one color that was easy to read
• I explained formula-plug-chug
• I put a picture
• I put the questions and answers of the homework we had to do for the class
• put a link to moodle for other homework sheet
• I talked about what we did in class

But because I was the first person to do a scribe post I think that I did a pretty good job and next time I can use previous comments from my first scribe post to know what to do and what not to do. What I liked about blogging was that when I was sick I could just go to the blog and figure out what our homework was and what we did in class. I enjoyed Blogger because we got to use pictures and colors and make our scribe post "pretty". Though I enjoyed working on Blogger there are some things that I did not like. What I did not like about Blogger is that we HAD to comment because I would forget many times and have to do it at the last minute. Another thing I did not like about it was that we are being graded on this. I also did not like (as Ben mentioned in his reflection post) that Blogger does not automatically spell chech and capitalize your I's, so I got some points of for that.But next time I KNOW that my scribe post will be better because now I know how I can improve it and make it better.

Ben's Reflection Post for Scribing

1-17-10

Hey Everybody!

For my first scribe post, most of the comments were overall good, but the people who commented did have very good suggestions that would've made my post even better. One of the suggestions that came up most was that I needed more pictures and that the one I used should be bigger. I agree with them about that because now that I look back, the picture is small and its text is hardly visible. Another popular suggestion, was that I needed to Hyperlink my links so people didn't have to copy and paste into their address bar. I also needed to put the date of the classes I was scribing for, instead of just listing them as "Thursday and Friday's science class". Another thing I could've improved, was making the post more original instead of just sticking with one color the entire post which made it uninteresting. Besides those, I believe I did good, but not great on my first scribe post. Some of the things I did well were:

• Have a lot of scientific vocabulary and lots of information about what we did in class
• Post the answers to our homework assignment
• Not make any spelling or grammar mistakes
• Use of links (even though they weren't Hyperlinked I still had a lot)
• Homework assignment for that class
• Legible font
• Being organized and having the post split into sections

Next quarter I can guarantee that I will have a better scribe post because after seeing everyone else's posts and their comments to mine, I know exactly what to do and how to do it in some cases. I am looking forward to blogging next quarter because the 6 graders will be joining us in Blogging(if I remember correctly) and getting to see what new things people will do. Blogging is good to have in a class because it is easy to know what happened if you were absent, and if you aren't too sure on a subject we learned about, it will most probably be on the post of whoever is scribing for our class. There are only two things I don't like about Blogger. The first is that there is no spell checker so you have to be sure about what you're typing. Second, not everything on Blogger is compatible with a Mac such as importing a photo and then you have to drag it in and you can't change its size. Other than that, I had a great time using Blogger and look forward to having the first post of the third quarter!

Courtney's Reflection Post

Once I did my scribe post on Monday, November 22, 2010, I noticed that I had some comments. I read these comments and noticed that I need to improve some things on my post for next time.
Next time I should:

• put a link to moodle instead of putting the questions on my post
• try to find a video on "YouTube" or "Khan Academy" instead of putting it on "RealPlay" or "Quick Time Player"
• use a hyperlink
  
• use a caption for the picture
  
• say what the link I am putting onto the blog is
• explain the vocabulary in depth
• explain how my examples relate to relative motion

What I did well was:

• using colors and having a neat post
• putting the notes we took in class
• putting the homework problems (but next time I should put a link to moodle)
• using a website for a video
• using pictures
• using science

Third Quarter my blog will look different because now I know what I need to improve, and next time I can always look back to the comments. I will use all of your suggestions and it will hopefully look much better! Blogging is, and was, one of my favorite things to do this year and last. I enjoy blogs because it is very helpful to the people who were absent, and it sometimes has new vocabulary which is also helpful. You can see what your classmates, students, of friends, did in class. There is usually a link to moodle and there you can see what you have for homework. There is only one thing I dislike while using "blogger", and it occurs when commenting because blogger sometimes deletes your comment and then you have to start all over again. Overall, I enjoy using blogger and think that it should be in more of the school systems!

Tamara's Refelction post for 2nd Quarter

   After I did my blog post (on Thrusday, December 9, 2010), I understood that I made some mistakes, I understood that also by reading other people's comments on my post. Here are some of them:

• I need to include more pictures, like a picture of a spring scale.
• I need spacing between the paragraphs.
• I shouldn't use yellow as my color, since it's hard to read.
• I also should of explained what "SI" means. 
• I should explain what the links are about. Plus, one of them did not work.
• I have one gremmatical mistake.
• I need to give the defenitions for the words we studied in class.

   In my post for the third quarter, I will definitely put more pictures and will not use the color yellow! And I will also try a bit harder. But I still think that my post was colorful, I tried to use some scientific vocabulary and my post turned out very detailed. The benefit of doing a blog is to remind yourself of what happened in class today, one week ago or even a month ago. It is also, like moodle, helps you with your homework. And if you were sick you can read blog and see what happened during science class. I liked doing blogging, because there are many options for doing it - you can use pictures, different colors and things like that.       

                                                                                                    By TamarA

Thursday's Class

Hello to everybody!

We did many things in Thursday's science class, we all had to take notes about Gravity, Universal law of Generation, Distance, and Weight, as the following;

Gravity is;

• A force between all objects in the Universe.
• It is dependent on mass and distance
• The closer something is - the stronger is the gravity that pulls it.

There is no gravity, so nothing holds them to the center, which makes them float

Universal law of Gravitation;

• Isaac Newton thought of it
• Gravity exists between all objects in the Universe
• Mass has to be very different to be noticeable
• An example of the one above is if someone cut his or her arm! The formula for the Universal law of Gravitation is this one.

Mass is;

• The amount of stuff in an object
• Measured with the TBB scale (Triple Beam Balance Scale)
• The units that it is measured in are grams.

This is a Triple Beam Balance, used to measure Newton.

Distance is;

• The amount of space between two different objects
• The equipment used to measured it with are rulers, meter sticks, trundle wheels
• The units it is measured in are meters, kilometers, hectometers, and light-years.

The space in the middle of these two objects is the distance between the objects.

Weight;

• DOES NOT EQUAL MASS!!!
• It is the amount of gravitational force on an object
• It is measured with a spring or force scale
• The measurement for it is Newton.

This is a spring scale used to measure weight that works when an object is hung on the hook, and shows how much weight the object is, so how much gravitational force is pulling it down.

When we were finished with taking the notes, we had to get out our notebooks if we had taken these notes on the computer, or if we had taken notes in our lab notebook we just had to turn to our clock on the front page to see our lab partner.

In case you forgot, the lab partner was number 11.

So when we knew our partners we paired up and sat beside each other, then Ms.D asked us to take from the front counter a small and a big block of wood, with a hook on it, and a spring scale. She then told us to write the numbers that were on our wooden blocks, on our lab sheet, and to then hook them to the spring scale. When everyone had done so, she told us to free our desks and make the big wooden block go around the table by pulling it with the spring scale, and told us to observe what happened to the measurements on the spring scale but to not write an observation. She then made us do the same thing over again with the small wooden block, and then both together, and with every different try, the scale's measurement was different. We then made sure that we spoke and asked any question we had on the lab paper, and we ran over the instructions and grading.Then we put everything back and she gave us some time to write our Purpose Question, and decide what were the IV, and DV, for this lab according to the purpose question. She then made us write our Hypothesis, but she did not tell us whether the IV and DV were right or wrong, and will only tell us at the end of the lab.

The work we had to do was similar to this;

Purpose Question: What are some of the factors that affect friction pulling a wooden block across different surfaces?

IV: YOUR CHOICE TO FILL IN

DV: YOUR CHOICE TO FILL IN

Hypothesis: YOUR OWN CHOICE TO FILL IN, but to do at LEAST three guesses.

We then put everything back and packed up, she dismissed us and that was theend of the class.

The lab worksheets are on moodle. In case anyone forgot, here is a link to it;

http://zagreb.ceesa.net/course/view.php?id=188

Hope you enjoyed reading my Blog Post,

The next scribe (if there is any) is....DRUM ROLL.........Ben!