November 3, 2007: A Modeling Approach to Energy

When: Saturday, November 3: 8 am - 4 pm; Gene Fuchs Award presentation at Noon
Where: Villa Duchesne, 801 S Spoede Rd, St Louis, MO 63131 map
Host: Katy Chole - RSVP requested by Nov.1
Presenters: Debbie Rice, Rex Rice, Mark Schober
Cost: $10 for lunch and curriculum materials; loop spring make-n-take: see below for prices.

The workshop was well attended with about 24 participants.

Physics is not a spectator sport, of course, so the participants were sent off on their lab explorations.

A pre-exploratory exploratory activity with a variety of energy situations and energy toys provides a common experience base as well as concrete examples for subsequent discussions and homework questions.
Jumping disks:

Wind-up toys:

Fire Cheetos on Fire!

The "how well do you trust physics?" bowling ball pendulum:

Preparing whiteboards as a visual aid to discussing various energy storage mechanisms:

A whiteboard for the energy of a bouncing ball:

Participants presented their whiteboards, explaning how they chose to represent energy storage and energy transfer in a variety of situations.

Subsequent labs were used to develop mathematical expressions for calculating elastic energy, kinetic energy and gravitational energy.


Here's some of the lab setups used for exploring energy with a variety of tracks.
Pasco's effective, but expensive, (>$150) cart launcher.

Rex's $2 loop spring for the Pasco track - mounts to end stop.

The universal spring loop mount which connects to the T-rails on the side of the track. In this configuration, a known spring compression stored a calculatable amount of elastic energy and compared to the speed upon leaving the spring to develop the expression for kinetic energy.

An L-bracket allows the spring loop to be attached to the center channel on the Vernier track.

The unversal mount also connects to the Vernier track.

Pasco's inexpensive tubular plastic track yields good results, aided by Rex's end blocks, which level, provide a pulley mount and a loop spring mount.

Join us for a full-day workshop in which you will participate as our students do in our classrooms to develop the energy concept. In this format, you will experience Modeling pedagogy and learn the modeling storyline for energy. The storyline is big on energy conservation and the first law of thermodynamics and minimizes the role of work. (This is a very interesting aspect that may change the way you think about energy!) Laboratory investigations and whiteboard-based discussion will be central activities for the day.

The energy labs feature another nifty Rex Rice gadget, a loop spring accessory for dynamics tracks, that is particularly conducive to our explorations. You'll want a set for your classroom, I guarantee! Rex has four different versions so that you can hook them to Pasco dynamics tracks, to Vernier dynamics tracks, to either dynamics track without using the manufacturer's endstop, or to a Pasco air track. You can get them at the workshop; the prices are below.

Also, at noon, we will honor our Gene Fuchs award recipients, Gene Allard and David Bross. Even if you can't joint us for the whole workshop, come at noon for lunch and to honor Gene and David for all they have contributed to SLAPT.

Please RSVP by Nov. 1 for the workshop by e-mailing Katy Chole at kchole@vdoh.org with the following information: (You can pay at the workshop.)

[ ] I'm coming to the energy workshop: $5 for curriculum materials on paper and on CD plus $5 for lunch and snacks.
[ ] I'm coming for lunch only ($5) to honor Gene and Dave. (Gene and Dave -- lunch is on us!)
[ ] I would like ______ loop springs of style _____ (a, b, c or d.) If you aren't sure, that's okay -- we will have plenty of material on hand and we can help you select the best one at the workshop.
a. attaches to the end stop of a Pasco Dynamics track. ($1.50 each)
b. attaches to a Vernier Dynamics track. ($2.00 each)
c. attaches to either a Vernier or a Pasco Dynamics track without using the end stop. ($3.00 each)
d. attaches to a Pasco Air Track. ($2.00 each)