Catching Up

Me... not you...

With my absence yesterday, today was a day to take up the slack, tie up loose ends and cover some new ground while we were at it. B and E Blocks reviewed and spot-checked understanding for buoyancy and began a walk through the topic of pressure. We took time to define pressure, contrast it from force, discuss Pascal's Principle and its application to hydraulic devices and explain how and why pressure varies with position in a column of fluid. Tomorrow, we'll put the icing on pressure and begin to take a look a fluids in motion. Well, E Block will do this - B Block will be investigating pressure with depth and the absolute pressure formula: P = P_o + ρgh - and using that to further their discussion of fluid pressure.

C and F Blocks tidied up their work with fluid pressure. C Block conducted a lab investigation that verified the linear relationship between pressure and position in a fluid column and saw that the equation of the line for that experiment was simply the formula for absolute pressure that we worked with in class. Some additional pressure-depth practice problems were assigned for practice and all of this will be reviewed tomorrow before we move on to fluids in motion. F Block discussed the idea of pressure with depth and how that could be extended to the effects on living creatures that we observed when they are exposed to significant variations in environmental pressure. Tomorrow, we move from stationary fluids to fluids in motion and see how that motion affects fluid pressure and direction of motion.