In their Season Premiere the Mythbusters will take on the infamous projectile problem of a dropped vs shot bullet. While teaching projectiles, many teachers use an example of shooting a bullet horizontally and dropping one next to it at the same time. While students agree that this may hold true for slow projectiles, they often don’t believe that that gravity would act on something moving really fast, like a bullet. On their season premiere tonight, 9pm PST, the Mythbusters will be testing this out in “Knock Your Socks Off.”
Category: PTSOS
Reflections on the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo Program Thursday, October 8, 2009 • 7:30PM Flight Controller Sy Liebergot Sy Liebergot, a former NASA flight controller, was on the job for some of the most memorable moments in space exploration, including the Apollo 13 fuel cell explosion. Mr. Liebergot will be available for book signings before and after the talk. www.nasa.gov National Aeronautics and Space Administration San Mateo Performing Arts Center • San Mateo, CA 506 N. Delaware Street, San Mateo, CA 94401 • Phone (650) 400-9425 • email pablo@laserpablo.com Sponsored by the Northern California and Nevada American Association of…
Sat, Sep. 12 and Sun, Sep. 13, 2009 Westin SFO Hotel, Millbrae, California (near the San Francisco Airport) Part of the 120th Anniversary Meeting of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific One unit of Academic Credit available through San Francisco State U. In this hands-on workshop, we will train educators to be “Galileo Ambassadors” for the International Year of Astronomy (2009). Teachers in grades 4 – 12 will learn how to do age-appropriate, inquiry-based activities in astronomy and physical science. After a brief introduction to Galileo’s life and work and the realms of astronomy, participants will explore: A Private Universe:…
Mark your calendars The fall NCNAPT meeting/workshops will be held at NASA Ames Research Center on October 10th, 2009. Keynote speaker will be Sy Liebergot, EECOM from Apollo 13. More details will be posted soon, including registration links, call for presentations, etc.
Physics educators have used photos of natural and man-made breakwaters to show refraction for probably as long as we’ve had photography. But now online mapping web sites (Google, Yahoo. etc.) allow you to find locations near you to make the images more tangible to your students. Oceans and bays are full of images of refraction, but you may also find diffraction patterns in a large lake. Below is an example from a breakwater in Berkeley, CA, in the San Francisco Bay View Larger Map Check water bodies around your institution to find examples you can use with your students. Most…