Google School is my new twist on National Geographic School (NGschool). It's very simple. I get up in the morning, make a cup of coffee, sit in front of the computer, and see that Google has a new doodle up. This morning, I saw:
I had no idea what it was, so I clicked and found out today, September 18th, is the birthday of some scientist guy from a long time ago. Like, who cares? Well, why not find out why anyone would care? Now I know that picture shows the Foucault Pendulum (pronounced fu-CO) and that this invention measured the rotation of the earth. Cool, right?
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| The first external influence |
So that brought me to our school day. I said to Ian and Shane, "Do what I say and behave yourselves and I won't make you do math. Fool around and its Saxon for you!" It was so easy to find some info on pendulums, Galileo's experiments, clock history, and
some experiments that lead students to discover answers on their own. We made some pendulums out of washers and yarn (instead of thread and paper clips) and taped them to the kitchen counter. We learned the scientific terms for the parts of a pendulum and explored why my first pendulum (a ruler swinging on a chopstick) had design flaws.
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| The second external influence |
We learned that the longer the rod (string), the slower the swing cycle. The heavier the weight (bob) on similar rod lengths, the fast the swing cycle (oscillation). Using what they learned, they had to adjust their pendulums so that they swung in one-second cycles. We used an online metronome to help us. When Lula and Jack got in the way, I sent the older kids outside to design an experiment.
Evie acted as the bob and Ian timed the swing cycles (aligned to the boot). Shane was assigned the job of scribe (ooh, history term!) They found that their results mimicked what they learned with the washers on the string:
The shorter the rod (or string or rope), the faster the swing cycle. I want to follow up with some videos on pendulums, but right now they are so busy playing nicely so I will just wait. It should only take a few more minutes...
I had no idea what it was, so I clicked and found out today, September 18th, is the birthday of some scientist guy from a long time ago. Like, who cares? Well, why not find out why anyone would care? Now I know that picture shows the Foucault Pendulum (pronounced fu-CO) and that this invention measured the rotation of the earth. Cool, right?
Evie acted as the bob and Ian timed the swing cycles (aligned to the boot). Shane was assigned the job of scribe (ooh, history term!) They found that their results mimicked what they learned with the washers on the string:
The shorter the rod (or string or rope), the faster the swing cycle. I want to follow up with some videos on pendulums, but right now they are so busy playing nicely so I will just wait. It should only take a few more minutes...
