I had a great day today. In one of my classes, we had a great discussion about why scientists might try to fit a mathematical model of best fit to a set of data. It was a great "what do scientists do?" conversation, and I think it may have had a profound effect on my students' thinking about physics class in high school. It totally jazzed me up.
Also, I had a "moment" in my honors class. We were discussion the meaning of different quantities in the mathematical models we arrived at during our measurement labs. We moved from a lab on the relationship between the mass of a cup filled with dice and the number of dice in the cup. It is very clear in that linear model what the meaning of the "y-intercept" and the slope are. So we moved to a different experiment, where we determined the relationship between the mass needed to balance a see saw with a set mass on one side to the distance the mass has to be placed from the fulcrum. This ends up plotting a function like D=A/m where D is the distance from the fulcrum, A is a constant and m is the mass. I asked if the kids could come up with some meaning for the "A" term. I did not have an idea what it was, but I wanted to hear what they had to say. After two different kids made two different statements, it dawned on me what that term was. It is the product of the set mass and its distance from the fulcrum on the other side of the see saw. How fun is that to have figured something out with the kids during a white board discussion. We even went a little long in class on the last period of the day on Friday. The kids were so into the conversation. It was great.
This modeling is going well, I think, but it is interesting how up and down my year has been. I clearly have good days and bad ones. Before I was trying to model, I mostly just had days. Now, I get disappointed when the kids are opting out of participating and it can dampen my mood. On the other hand, I have days like Friday where I walk away totally energized. It was a great day!
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