Science Teaching tips from Lee Trampleasure – Page 8 – Bringing over 30 years of public and private high school teaching experience to help you.

August 10, 2010

End of the year teacher evaluation for my physics students to complete

At the end of each school year, I have my students complete an evaluation of the course. My goal is for them to reflect (1) me, (2) the class, and (3) themselves. I find the evaluations extremely valuable. Scary at times, but valuable. This last year wasn’t one of my best, and the evaluations showed that to me. But I...

Physics/Science Education Comments: 3

July 15, 2010

Using a TI-83 or TI-84 graphing calculator in high school physics classes

This summer I’m leading a workshop at the American Association of Physics Teachers meeting entitled “Using graphing calculators in the classroom.” Featured in the workshop is my handout titled “Analyzing data using your TI-83 or TI-84 calculator.” You can download a PDF version of the worksheet here. The handout has calculator screenshots and uses TI fonts to show the exact...

Modeling/Physics/Science Education Comments: 4

July 13, 2010

Welcome…

…to my blog. I write about science education, radical/liberal politics, accessible web design, web support for small “brick and mortar” businesses, and a little about my life. Since I write about such a broad spectrum of topics, you may want to click the category link (on the right) of the topic you are most interested in.

General

June 29, 2010

New Grade Machine support email group

Grade Machine’s creator, Misty City, closed and sold the program to Pearson, who then stopped work on and support for the program. So it’s up to the users of Grade Machine to help each other out. A new Google group is designed for peer-to-peer support for this wonderful grading program. You can find and join the group here: http://groups.google.com/group/grade-machine. If...

Grading software Comments: 2

June 9, 2010

Error analysis in volume measurements

I use the attached worksheet to walk my high school physics students through the process of determining the percent error in a calculated measurement. After these calculations, students then determine the range of their final results (± x cm3). Finally, they look at the range and discover that use of the “sig figs” rules gives them about the same value...

Physics/Science Education Comments: 0

April 19, 2010

Grade Machine operating system checks

Since Grade Machine is no longer supported, we may start moving into operating systems (e.g. Windows XP, Mac OSX) that Grade Machine will no longer run under. Please add a comment to this post if you have installed Grade Machine on your operating system, and if you have been successful or not. This will help users who are upgrading their...

Grading software Comments: 8

December 7, 2009

Hayward’s “D Street” fault creep, curb offset evidence erased

Sadly, improvements in city streets can wipe out geologic evidence. D Street has been a great field trip stop to see earthquake fault creep, and appears in many guidebooks and web sites. But in 1997, Hayward repaved the road, including the sidewalks (they all needed it). When they repaved it, they straightened all the curb lines, thereby erasing the evidence...

Geology/Earth Science Comment: 1

October 23, 2009

Handout for using the TI 83 / 84 calculator in a science classroom.

I have updated my Analyzing data using your TI-83 or TI-84 calculator handout. New features include: Using the Table features to have the calculator solve for variables. Using Draw to calculate the slope of the tangent to a curved line. Standard letter size (8.5×11 inches) for easier printing. You can download a copy here: TI-graphing-calculator-tips-for-science.pdf. It is in PDF which...

Modeling/Physics/Science Education Comments: 2

October 14, 2009

Loma Prieta 20 year anniversary

This Saturday (October 17, 2009) marks the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Everyone who was in the Santa Cruz/SF Bay Area has their story of where they were, and KQED’s Forum call-in program had a great hour yesterday. It’s been long enough ago that for my students (juniors and seniors in high school) the earthquake is now only...

General/Science Education Comments: 2

September 30, 2009

Generic science class data table

In my physic classes, we do a lot of labs. Students are encouraged to create their own data tables, but many aren’t so “linearly” inclined, and have difficulty creating neat tables. I created a generic data table they can use on any lab. Design of the data table Most of our labs require three measurements of ten different settings of...

Modeling/Physics/Science Education Comments: 0