Physics
The past six weeks in physics, the students have used Apologia's Exploring Creation with Physics to learn about what the Nobel Prize winning scientist Ernest Rutherford calls the "fundamental science." In Module 1, the students have learned the following vocabulary terms related to motion in one direction: accuracy, precision, position, velocity, acceleration, displacement, vector quantity, scalar quantity, speed, instantaneous velocity, average velocity, and slope. They have learned the System Internationale set of units: meters, kilograms, and seconds. They have also determined the factors for significant figures. They have calculated both an object's distance and displacement. And, they have learned and applied the following equations: velocity, speed, acceleration, and slope. Along with their formal science studies, the students are reading Einstein and Infeld's book The Evolution of Physics. Published in 1938, it explains Einstein's realism: his belief in an "objective reality" in which spacetime exists in one continuum within the constructs of determinism and causality. Their studies have also included that of nature. Using Peterson's A Field Guide to the Atmosphere, a set of binoculars, colored pencils, and their journals, the students spent an afternoon at both Veteran's Park and Dalworthington Garden's city park. At each, they wrote down observations about the sky, wind, temperature, and barometric pressure in their nature journals as well as sketching the sky.
General Science
Using Apologia's Exploring Creation with General Science, the students began this school year by simply defining the word “science.” Though the word itself is rooted in the Latin word “scientia”, which means “to have knowledge”, it is generally understood as an endeavor to accumulate and classify that which can be observed as to formulate general laws about the natural world. Along with the word “science”, the students have studied the following vocabulary terms in Module 1: papyrus, atoms, spontaneous generation, geocentric system, evolution, alchemy, chemical reaction, constellations, supernova, nebula, heliocentric view, and encyclopedia. Next, the students studied ancient scientists and their lasting contributions to the field of science. They have studied the following people: Imhotep, Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Leucippus, Democritus, Aristotle, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Grosseteste, Bacon, Bradwardine, Nicholas of Cusa, Copernicus and Kepler. To help the students gain a clearer understanding of the differences between the geocentric and heliocentric views, they each drew, labeled and color-coded both theories on sketch paper. Also, the class has completed three experiments this academic period. The first experiment required the students to drop a piece of cork, grape, ice cube, and rock into a mixture of water, oil, and syrup to determine how atoms are packed together in different substances. The second experiment involved only the use of food coloring, two canning jars, and water. By observing how the food coloring was distributed in cold water versus hot water, the students were able to better understand atomic motion. Our third experiment was a blast, almost literally! After learning about the Romans use of alchemy to create gold, the students combined vinegar, baking soda and the liquid from boiled cabbage inside a bottle topped with a balloon. Once the chemicals mixed, the balloon expanded. It was so much fun that the students asked to do the experiment again! Along with the Apologia text, our class is reading the Sower Series book Giant of Science and Faith, Johannes Kepler by John Tiner. It is a wonderful story about Kepler's life from a young boy all the way through his career as an astronomer. Here is a portion of his personal creed, “I believe that our Creator has given us a spirit in addition to the senses, for another reason than merely to provide a living for ourselves...Man's soul is something quite different from the other parts of man, and the soul is kept alive, enriched and grows by the food called knowledge.” Like that of the physics class, the middle school students also participate in nature study.
It has been such a wonderful first few weeks of school! Mrs. Roy
