Proficiency #5
Nuclear energy could really help the United States' energy needs. It is more energy efficient than fossil fuels which pollute the atmosphere more than nuclear energy. Another reason is the reliability. Nuclear power plants don't need very much fuel and they are less likely to have shortages because of earthquakes of natural disasters. The last thing is the safety of nuclear energy. Every year about 10,000 to 50,000 people die from respiratory diseases like from the burning of coal, and about 300 die from mining accidents. In nuclear power plants no one has died or been seriously injured while working there because there is a lot of complicated machines that make the chances of accidents very low. These are some of the reasons that nuclear energy is better than using fossil fuels.
Meeting the proficiencies
Prof #1: How Newton's laws of motion apply to the phisical world.
I think that the laws of motion apply to the phisical world because they explain movment and how things happen to objects like if you hit a baseball then that is the third law of motion. Or if you role a ball on the ground then that is the first law because friction and gravity are the forces acting on the ball to make it stop.
Prof #2
- We will put a tennis ball down a ramp on different surfaces and time how long it takes to stop completely.
Problem: How does friction and gravity apply to Newton’s laws?
Hypothesis: I think that the tennis ball will go farther on tile than on dirt or grass because it is smoother and it would have less friction.
Materials: Tennis ball, ramp, different surfaces, three of the same sized science books
Experiment:
CV- tennis ball, ramp
IV- type of surfaces
DV- time it takes for ball to stop
Step1- Put the ramp on a tile surface
Step 2- roll the ball down the ramp
Step 3- time how long it takes for the ball to stop rolling
Step 4- repeat steps 1-3 two more times
Step 5- put the ramp on a dirt surface
Step 6- roll the ball down the ramp
Step 7- time how long it takes for the ball to stop
Step 8- repeat steps 5-7 two times
Step 9- put the ramp on a grass surface
Step 10- roll the ball down the ramp
Step 11- time how long it takes for ball to stop
Step 12- repeat steps 9-11 two more times
Observation:
 Friction and Gravity project | ||||||||
tile | dirt | grass | ||||||
trial 1 | 22.11 | 4.38 | 1.34 | |||||
trial 2 | 14.16 | 4.07 | 1.03 | |||||
| 26.9 | 3.56 | 1.43 | |||||
Conclusion: My problem was how do friction and gravity affect Newton’s laws? What I thought would happen was the ball would roll farther on the tile because there will be less friction on the tile because it is smoother. What I observed was that the car took longer to stop on the tile which proves that my hypothesis is correct.
Science proficiency #3
Problem: Does a toy car accelerate faster on tin foil, wax paper or plastic
Hypothesis: I think that the car will go faster on the plastic because it is smoother and doesn’t have as much fiction.
CV-Car, ramp
IV- surface car is on
DV- acceleration of car
Materials: car, ramp, tin foil, wax paper, plastic
Procedure:
Step 1: set the tin foil at the bottom of the ramp
Step 2: roll the car down the ramp
Step 3: time how fast the car goes at the beginning of the ramp and the end of the ramp.
Step 4: Repeat steps 1-3 two more times
Step 5: Set the wax paper at the bottom of the ramp
Step 6: Roll the car down the ramp
Step 7: time how fast the car goes at the beginning of the ramp and the end of the ramp
Step 8: repeat steps 5-7 two more times
Step 9: set the plastic at the bottom of the ramp
Step 10: Roll the car down the ramp
Step 11: time how fast it goes at the beginning of the ramp and the end of the ramp
Step 12: repeat steps 9-11 two more times
Observation:
Conclusion: My problem was will a toy car accelerate faster on tinfoil, wax paper, or plastic. My hypothesis was that the car would go faster on plastic because it is smoother. I was correct because as you can see by looking at the graph that the car accelerated faster on the plastic.
Prof #4- We did a rube Goldberg to show how simple machines transfer energy. What happened was we used a pulley to start a car down an inclined plane so it hit a ball. when the car hit the ball it transfered all of its energy to the ball which rolled off a metal poker case into some dominoes which fell into each other and tranfered their energy to a car and set it though a motor and sent the car flying into some more dominoes that set off another car which goes around a loop and hits a batman toy in the face which makes it fall.
