Blog Archives - Mr. Powell Science

Measuring the speed of light with Chocolate!

4/26/2018

As we continue to study waves, today we took a deep dive into electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic waves consist of a spectrum of waves from Radio waves with the longest wavelength, down to gamma waves with the smallest. In class we used microwaves and chocolate bars to measure the speed of light, which is the speed at which all EMS waves move.

Today in class we made straw flutes to explore sound

4/20/2018

The Brown Note

4/19/2018

In class we discussed compressional waves in particular as to how they relate to sound. We also discussed the theoretical (and kind of gross) idea of the Brown Note.

Calculating Wave speed, length, and frequency

4/18/2018

Today we spent some time learning how to calculate the speed of a wave, which is the product of the frequency of the wave multiplied by its wavelength. You can check out a full tutorial to find any of these quantities here.

April 17th, 2018

4/17/2018

We continued our investigation of waves with a little help from everyone's favorite Science Guy.

Ripple in still water...

4/13/2018

Today we made some waves of our own outside with different types of rope. On Monday we will analyze our data and continue our study of waves.

Return of the Gold Tape Question!!!
After too long a hiatus, GTQs are back. For this week's question, watch (and more importantly listen to) the video to the right of legendary rock band The Grateful Dead performing their classic song "Ripple." Your task is to identify and explain at least 4 examples of waves that can be found in the lyrics to the song. You can comment or email your responses.

Transverse and Compressional Waves

4/12/2018

Much of today was spent discussing the parts of the two main types of waves we will study in this unit.

Transverse Wave

Compressional Wave

Testing is over, onto waves!

4/11/2018

Congratulations on finishing up your CMAS testing. We are continuing our energy unit in a new direction and that is the direction of waves. We will be investigating both transverse and longitudinal waves, as well as electromagnetic and sound waves. All waves have similarities with each other but different types of waves also have unique characteristics that we will discover during our new unit.

Convection

4/3/2018

Continuing our investigation of heat transfer, today we discussed and demonstrated convection. In convection, warmer, less-dense materials moves up, allowing colder, more-dense materials to sink.

Heat Transfer

4/2/2018

Mr. Powell is back from OWL and we are continuing our investigation of energy. This week we are exploring thermal (heat) energy, specifically about how this energy is transferred. In class today we did a quick experiment with conduction and saw that heat can be transferred through a metallic solid in through the process of conduction.