Science

Proficiency #1- I can experiment and explain how Newton's Laws of Motion apply to the physical world.

Toy Car PHEOC

Problem: Does the mass on top of a block of wood effect how far it a toy car pushes the block of wood?

Hypothesis: I believe that the more weight on the block of wood will decrease the length that the wood travels. I know this is based on previous knowledge that more weight on an object will be more difficult for one object to push, the heavier the object is the more effort it will take to move.

Experimental Design:

Materials:

® Toy car
® Car ramp
® Block of wood
® 4 (500 g) dumbbells
® Lab table to do the experiment

Variables:

CV: Length of the ramp, same toy car, surface on the table

DV: Distance the wood travels

IV: Amount of weight on the block

Control: No weight on the block of wood

Procdure:

1. Gather all materials
2. Build ramp with four toy car ramps, and six science books to brace to hold the ramp
3. At the end of the ramp place a meter stick to measure the length of the block
4. Place a block of wood without any weight on it
5. At the top of the ramp drop the car to the ramp and measure the length that the block of wood traveled
6. Repeat step 5 twice more
7. Repeat steps 3-6 with 500 g, 1,000 g, 1,500 g and 2,000 g of weight
8. Record all data
9. Clean up

Observations:

When there was no weight on the block of wood the block would move the furthest
Once I started to put weight on top of the block the toy car would be stopped by the amount of weight
Placing books under the ramp really helped stabilize the ramp to keep the car on track 



Conclusion: After testing how much mass on the block of wood would affect how far the could push the block of wood, I found out that my hypothesis was correct. This experiment proved that the greater amount of weight on the block of wood decreased the length the car could move the block. Results basically showed that the block with no weight was the only block that had actually moved. Averages go as followed: 0g had an average of 28 and 2/3 centimeters. The average for 500g was 3. 2/3 was the average for 1,000g and both 1,500g and 2, 000 grams averaged at 0 centimeters. I believe that I concluded with the results that I did because when researching Newton's Laws. Newton's First Law of Motion is that any object in motion will stay in motion, while any object at rest will stay at rest in the same direction until an unbalanced force acts upon it. This happened for instance when I released the toy car down the ramp it accelerated until it hit the block of wood which acted as an unbalanced force. The greater the force, the greater the acceleration explains Newton's Second Law of Motion; my experiment would have shown this had instead of the weight I might have increased or decreased the angle that the ramp was at. Once my toy car hit the block of wood, no matter how much weight was on there it always stopped from the force. This is an example of Newton's Third Law of Motion, for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction (all forces come in pairs). External variables that I eliminated was where I would let go of the toy car, to make sure that I did this I let go of the car at the exact same position every time. If there was one thing that I would change in this experiment it would be added less weight on the block of wood every time, or having smaller increments of weight.


Proficiency #2- I can experiment and explain how friction and gravity apply to Newton's Laws of Motion.

Problem: How will the amount of mass on a chair effect your ability to push the chair across the room?

Hypothesis: I believe that the more mass that you put on the chair will make it harder to push the chair across the room. This is because they as the objects get heavier it will get put more weight on the chair which can only be pushed with more force.


Experimental Design:


Materials:

Ø Chair
Ø Stopwatch
Ø Person to time
Ø 10 pound weight
Ø 30 pound weight
Ø 50 pound weight
Ø 70 pound weight
Ø 90 pound weight
Ø 110 pound weight
Ø Pieces of tape
Ø Open floor area (20 feet)

Variables:

IV: Amount in length that you push the chair, person timing, person pushing chair, way that you the chair, way you put the amount on a chair, surface that the chair is pushed on

DV: Amount of time to push a chair across the floor

CV: amount of weight on the chair, objects on the chair, amount of force used to push the chair

Control: Chair without any weight


Procedure:

1. Gather all materials
2. Measure 20 feet out and mark the beginning and end with tape
3. Have the person timing you start and push the chair across
4. Record time
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 with each weight increment
6. Record all data
7. Clean up

External Variables:

External variable that I have to eliminate is making sure that the timer is going to be consistent throughout the experiment. I plan to do this by having one person time with all the weights, this person and I will also have to communicate as when to start timing. As for when we end that certain increment it should be easy to stop the stopwatch when the chair crossed the line. 





Observations:

Graph seems to be misleading, the higher the weight looks like it would be better, but actually the further up on the graph means the more time it took

Maybe I should have gone up in smaller increment because adding 20 pounds each time is a lot of weight to be increasing by 

 


Conclusion:When testing how the mass on a chair will effect your ability to push the chair across a 20 foot surface, my hypothesis was correct. I based this off prediction off of my previous knowledge and common knowledge about mass. As the amount of mass increases the lesser ability you have to control this amount of weight. My belief as to why I concluded with results that I did is because the more weight that I put on the chair the harder it got to push, which in turn took more time to get the chair across the line. When looking at the scale with the results above you see that my results were fairly consistent, with the weight to time ratio. Increasing slightly each increment. There were not very many external variables within this experiment, one problem that I did encounter was the timing. I controlled this by communicating with my partner when to begin and end.

Proficiency #3- I can experiment and explain the relationship between speed and acceleration.


Observations:
PHEOC I-Pod Touch

Problem: Will the speed of music increase or decrease your ability to hear?

Hypothesis:I believe that the speed of music depending on the genre will decrease your ability to hear the song. This is because some genres of music such as rap are hard to hear as it is. The musical genres will be easier to hear. Scientific research done by the Northwestern Memorial Hospital shows that the intensity of sound can effect your ability to hear. Intensity is measured in decibels, for example loud music can reach up to about 120 dB, if you listen to loud music at such an intensity your hearing will decrease. Another factor is tone, tone is measured in cycles per second. Human range of tone is about 20- 20,000 Hz. Lower sounds like bass are around 50 Hz while high pitched shrieking sounds can reach up to 10,000 Hz or higher.

Experimental Design:

Materials-

v I-Pod with different genres of music
v A technology source that has the ability to play music
v Person that will listen to the songs and record what they have heard

Variables-

CV- Genre of music, speed that the music is going,

IV- Speed of Music

DV- Ability to hear

Control: Normal speed

Procedure-

1. Find four songs of different genres on my Ipod
2. Listen to the 1st song in normal speed, twice as fast, half speed
3. Rate these three times on a scale of one to ten
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the last three songs
5. Record Data
6. Clean up

External Variables-

One external variable that comes up is quantitifying my results. This is because when testing your ability to hear, the only way to get your results is by using a scale of 1-10.

Scale

1. Could not hear any words at all
2. Heard less than a handful of words
3. Heard a few words but didn’t make sense of what they were saying
4. Heard enough words that made sense
5. Heard a few sentences that were compensable
6. Heard full verses
7. Heard most of the song but didn’t hear a few sentences
8. Heard most of the song but didn’t hear a few sayings
9. Heard most of the song but didn’t hear less than a handful of words
10. Heard all of the song without difficulty

Observations:

Songs at normal speed were very easy to hear
As songs got faster it got more difficult to hear
It really started to decrease at 2x the normal speed 
Songs that I knew better also got a higher score according to the scale 
The song that I didn't know as well was Bon Jovi's 'Have a Nice Day' therefore it got a lower score than "Don't Stop Believin'; 'Vanilla Twilight' and 'Mine'.
Averages were:
normal speed 9.75 
1x speed 5.75
2x speed 3.5
3x speed 1.75
Conclusion: After testing how the speed of music depending on the genre will affect your ability to hear, my hypothesis was correct at the fact that the faster the music the decrease in your ability to hear. This happened because humans can only hear up to a certain scale and speed 20- 20,000 Hz.** Average's for this experiment were at normal speed results were9.75; at 1x results were 5.75; at 2x results were 3.5; at 3x results were 1.75. **Refer to the scale above.** I believe that I concluded with the results that I did because of the tone of the music was at a normal range for human hearing. Also as explained in my observations that songs I knew better than other than Bon Jovi's 'Have A Nice Day' scored higher, because I knew the songs and words better. Managing to quantify my results was an external variable that I had, the only real way that you could get any type of answer was a scale. I believe that even though this may not be the preferred way to get results but I feel that it worked out well.



Proficiency #4- I can experiment and explain how simple machines utilize mechanical advantage to transfer energy (potential energy, kinetic energy and various other energies).

Rube Goldberg- Meeting the proficiency

We used all 6 of the simple machines (lever, wedge, inclined plane, wheel and axle, screw and pulley) in our Rube Goldberg. Our Rube Goldberg is putting a soccer ball into a goal. We use an inclined plane a carrier to get from one place to another. A screw is used almost as stairs to get back down to the board. Wheel and axel is used at the bottom of the screw to slow down the speed of the bouncy ball. Wedges are used to hold a ball in place until it needs to move again. We used a pulley to transfer objects from one area to the other. The lever is the last step to our Rube Goldberg, once the bouncy ball hits one side of the lever it will cause the other to roll into the goal.

Proficiency #5- I can experiment and explain how alternate forms of energy can be utilized to influence the United States' energy needs.

Wind Energy- WE Energy Turbines


Giant white wind turbines spin in the air, powering the homes of many people. On a clear sunny day you can see the field filled with many turbines, powering over the hillside. When you drive by in your car, you have to turn your head and take another look at these giant wind turbines in the clean unpolluted air. If we used forms of wind energy across the country our air would be much cleaner.


Wind energy is basically converted from solar energy. The sun heats the different parts of the earth the entire day, so not only does it heat different area but it can also heat different surfaces as well. Due to this they reflect and absorb differently. An example would be water verves a mountain these areas are going to warm at a different rate; so when the warmer air rises and cooler air replaces it creating wind. Obviously, therefore wind creates wind energy. One way that WE Energies has created more wind energy is the Blue Sky Green Field Energy Center in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin. This is a perfect example of utilizing alternate forms of energy, and by doing this they can not only create a better environment for everyone but it is also a more efficient way to power homes. Just by the 88 wind turbines they can power about 36,000 residential homes. When this project started in 2007, it was planned to generate 328 million emission-free kilowatts of energy. If you didn’t know, emission is basically air pollution. So when we use energy that is not completely emission-free it would be like throwing garbage into the air. But when using emission-free energy, you have less air pollution.


Not only does wind power help our environment, but for centuries people have been using wind power to help simplify tasks. In smaller wind turbines, they can grind grain or pump water. But now that there are more effective modernized larger turbines it has the ability to create electricity and power homes. The reason that you see all wind farms have them high off the ground is because the wind is at a much higher power farther off the ground, while the wind closer to the ground isn’t as powerful. In the past few years wind turbines and wind energy became the most common renewable resource.


WE Energies's Blue Sky Green Field is just one wind farm. Imagine the energy we can save and the electricity we could generate. Wind power is just one example of the many alternate forms of energy that could influence the United States' energy needs.

Citations

Unknown. "WE Energies/Enviornment Center." 2010. Blue Sky Green Field Energy Center . 1 Nov. 2010 .

 "Wind Energy Basics ." 2009. American Wind Energy Association . 1 Nov. 2010 .

"Wind Farm." 3 Nov. 2010. Wind Farm . 1 Nov. 2010 .