Bracing for Tests

Honors Physics had the chance to go over their homework for the Power section of the chapter and used the remainder of the class to review for tomorrow’s exam. As usual, we walked through the chapter highlighting concepts and skills and took time to address questions people had about the material or the problem-solving techniques. Monday, we begin our unit on momentum.

Physical Science B went over their Chapter 11 exams and then discussed Pascal’s principle and the function of hydraulic devices. Hydraulic devices multiply our effort force, so that we can successfully work against a resistance larger than what we could work against alone. We’ll go over the homework problems tomorrow and work a few additional ones to make sure that people have a good grasp of the math. Then, we begin to discuss how the force of gravity affects pressure in fluids and that will lead us into Monday’s lab which targets this idea specifically.

Physical Science E reviewed yesterday’s lab and began a discussion of how forces are generated within fluids (which then leads to pressure generation in fluids). We then tuned to the idea that fluids move “down” pressure gradients – they move from areas of higher pressure to areas of lower pressure. This can have an impact on any matter that stands in the path of the moving fluid and we discussed the implications for living and physical systems subject to pressure imbalances. Tomorrow, we’ll take up a discussion of what happens to fluids when they aren’t allowed to move to a lower pressure area when the pressure in one area of the fluid experiences an increase. The transmission of pressure by a fluid, equally and in all directions, has practical applications that we will investigate with a study of hydraulic devices.

Physics F and G reviewed for tomorrow’s exam. We went back through the chapter and worked through any problems or questions that people had about the material. You can rest assured that there won’t be any problems on the test like #34 of the Chapter Review, but you should be able to perform simple calculations for work, kinetic energy (and the work-kinetic energy theorem), both potential energies, energy conservation and power. If you have any additional questions, stop in tomorrow morning before school and we can address them at that time. On Monday, we will extend our discussion of forces and energy to the concept of momentum and its conservation.

Homework

Honors Physics A, Physics F and G: Study for exam
Physical Science B: p. 96 #26-28
Physical Science E: None