Simple
Pendulum - Case Notes
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Author
- Bob Huffman - Summer 1996
Background
Teaching Notes
- Start by giving student groups a handout containing
background material handing on this exercise.
- Briefly discuss with the class as a whole the material at
the top of the page. Student groups then spend time
answering the questions. Finally have groups report to
the whole class.
- Ask the groups to suggest possible
relationships between the independent variables and the
dependent variable. These are the hypotheses.
- Ask the groups to devise an experiment, or
series of experiments, to test the proposed hypotheses.
- Student groups perform the experiments. They set up data
tables which clearly reflect the measurements that they
are making.
- Describe how you are going to analyze the data. This
should include any mathematical or statistical studies
and how the results of the analyses are to be presented.
- Student Groups present any conclusions they are able to
derive from their data and asked to compare with their
hypotheses.
- As a class, discuss the role of models in the scientific
method.
- Give the groups the second
handout, which describes a mathematical model of the
pendulum, and ask them to discuss ways to present the
data which illustrate the interconnections predicted by
the model.
- Discuss both the physics (the experimental results) and
the process of coming to the conclusions.