[IAEP] Gravity for Beginners...

[Jeff Elkner]

Thanks!  I'll let you know how it goes.

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 6:05 PM, Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com> wrote:
> You can do the overlays in Etoys by using its paint tool to paint out (using
> transparent paint) the middle of the frames so the others will show through.
>
> Also take a look at http://www.vpri.org/pdf/rn2005001_learning.pdf which
> shows this, and another way to do the measuring by putting frames side by
> side and using the height of translucent rectangles to do the measuring.
>
> There are several key techniques here to keep in mind, even with high school
> students. One is the "7 + or - 2" principle of not trying to jam too many
> ideas at once into the
>
> For the 5th graders we did fun and games with speed and acceleration several
> months before dropping objects off the roof of the school. The kids used the
> translucent rectangles here to get some visual memories of these ideas.
> (Both Newton and Einstein like to do math first -- to provide concepts and
> vocabulary -- before looking at the physical world.
>
> The translucent rectangles also help a lot with measuring errors (and the
> fact that you only have pixels, and there is some motion blur in the
> videos).
>
> What you want is for the differences that are clearly shown when the
> translucent rectangles are overlaid should look to be of constant size
> ("pretty nearly" as Newton would say). This gives rise to the hypothesis of
> constant acceleration, which is then tested by making a simulation with
> constant acceleration and finding some way to see if the video and the
> simulation match up. The 10 year olds found some good ways to do this.
>
> If the kids could really measure accurately, they would find that the
> acceleration is not actually constant, but differs by about one part in a
> million from 14 feet above the ground and at the ground level (due the more
> accurate inverse square Newton "Law").
>
> Please don't hesitate to ask questions.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Alan
>
> ________________________________
> From: Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>
> To: Jeff Elkner <jeff at elkner.net>
> Cc: iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org
> Sent: Sat, March 20, 2010 12:41:01 PM
> Subject: Re: [IAEP] Gravity for Beginners...
>
> kino will let you export your movie as a series of stills... I am sure
> there are many Free multimedia programs with a similar capability.
>
> regards.
>
> -walter
>
> On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 3:17 PM, Jeff Elkner <jeff at elkner.net> wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I'm working on a derivative version of "Gravity for 10 Year Olds" to
>> use with my high school age students, which I'm calling "Gravity for
>> Beginners":
>>
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ARq50A7-FeDXZGd2MnN0ODJfMjAwNmc0NHF4ZHI&hl=en
>>
>> Day 2 has the following:
>>
>> "Show the students how to overlay frames from their videos to get this
>> effect:"
>>
>> Can anyone point me to easy instructions on how to do this?  I can't
>> really use the lesson without it.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> jeff elkner
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org
> _______________________________________________
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>
>