Blog Post week 2

 Olivia Langosch 

1. In lab we learned how to make races exciting between two people who run at different speeds. The whole class broke out into our table groups and got to think and discuss our own ideas of how to travel and calculate the speed at which one person in our group goes. We discussed with another group on the speed of how fast our person went in a swivel chair from one point to another. We calculated what time for each of our people went per second and who should start first, and when. We figured out that we did not include the time out person needed to accelerate, so our person actually went slower and he needed to start first, or at a farther back point.

2. In Thursday's lecture, I learned a lot more about how to calculate motion. We did a couple of examples, word problems, and practiced what we did in lab. Like, if Jeff was riding in his car at 30 mph or his bike at 20 mph, when he should start driving, and at what point would he start driving if he was going a 10 mile distance. I also learned how important it is to make sure we have clear standard units when describing and calculating.

3. From the reading, I learned how to calculate speed and velocity, and the definitions of them. This is a refresher from what I have previously learned. Speed is how fast something moves, and velocity is how fast and in what direction something moves. This is the most helpful because I think we used this in lab, and will be continuing using it in the future. I found it interesting that roller coasters change their speed and velocity, which is what makes it so much more exciting because if they did not change their velocity, it would feel like you are just sitting there. I think I would want to learn a bit more on acceleration because when we were in lab, I talked about how our person needed time for acceleration in the chair. I think I would want to learn more about this because this would be important to know if I will be doing this activity in my classroom in the future. I think I would just want to practice some examples using acceleration because in lab, that would have been important to know regarding our way of racing.