Science Methods II - Week 4

 

Discussion:

This week in discussion we talked about our school of the wild lesson plans, and then moved onto our big discussion of Pendulums. We made a hypothesis about whether the size of the pendulum would affect how fast it spun. I predicted that it would not, and I was correct. We then made a different experiment, and we decided to change the length of the string in the experiment. We predicted that a shorter string length would make it swing faster and we were correct in our prediction.

Lecture:

This week in lecture we continued our discussion of pendulums, beginning by drawing the forces acting on a swing. We talked about these different forces, and mentioned how ropes pull in the direction they are facing, as well as against gravity. We then began to talk about energy and describing it. We mentioned it being manifested as kinetic energy and potential energy in a pendulum. If something is moving, it has kinetic energy, and it is not moving it has potential energy energy.

Textbook reading

From the textbook I learned that pendulums use both potential and kinetic energy throughout their swings. I learned that the potential energy starts as the pendulum begins its swing, and as the pendulum swings, the energy gets transferred into kinetic as it reaches the end of its swing. The swing uses its kinetic energy to push forwards and up, then it is transferred back into potential energy as gravity pushes it back down. This cycle then continues throughout its swing. I also learned more about pendulums, specifically that a longer pendulum has a longer period, and that weight does not affect a pendulum’s period. I also found that  string length is the main factor in affecting how fast pendulums swing, the longer the rope, the longer it takes the pendulum to swing back and forth.