Extra Credit Bar:

Only videos 1 & 2 can earn you extra credit--don't waste your time watching 3 &/or 4. . .

Quiz Next Week:

For next week's quiz, be sure to review pages 50 through 53 in the lab manual. You should know how to calculate the area of rectangles and circles. You should know how to calculate the volume of regularly shaped objects like cubes and cylinders, and you should know how to find the volume of irregularly shaped objects like rocks, keys and nuts. You have to know how to read the measuring scale on each of the three graduated cylinders that we use in the lab--know to what decimal place you should estimate. Be sure you read and understand the procedure on page 52--you will be asked questions about this procedure. Finally, you need to know how to calculate the volume of gravel in a sample of gravel and air. You should also know how to calculate the percent of air (or gravel) in the sample.

Group Project Evaluation Rubric

As you and your partners begin the task of writing a report (Sci.Proj.Template) as part of your group project presentation, you may be wondering about my expectations for your report and what your responsibilities are. This rubric should give you a good idea of what you should be doing and how you and your partners can get the highest grade possible. Print out a copy and refer to it often.

Literature Review Tips

Tips for writing a Literature Review

Now that your group has selected a topic and has had a chance to research that topic, you have probably decided upon your Statement of Problem, your hypothesis and your proposed experimental procedure. As a group you should have at least five sources to report on. Each of your sources should have provided you with some information about your topic. In the Literature Review you will relate this information to your reader. Below you will find a format for the Literature Review that you should follow when working in the GoogleDocs document titled Sci.Proj. Template:

Literature Review

First Paragraph: Introduce the project. Explain to the reader the question you will be answering and briefly describe your experiment (in future tense). Why were you interested in this topic? Describe to the reader the type of information that you were looking for in your research (basic background information [be specific], if any one else had performed similar experiments, etc...)

Next Paragraph: Describe the type of search that you did--did you find books on your topic around your house ? Did you perform an exhaustive search in all libraries within fifty miles of your home? Did you search for magazine articles or newspaper articles? What kinds of electronic (computer) searches did you do? What were your key search words and how productive were these efforts? Did you rely on interviews for some of your research? Did you rely on information from manufacturers, corporations, utilities etc...? Did you speak with other students who had performed similar experiments in the past? Did you have any difficulties finding the type of information that you needed? If so, why do you think that was the case? If there was more time available, where else might you have searched for more information?

The bulk of the Review of Literature should be used to relate to your reader the information that was obtained as a result of your research efforts. At least one paragraph should be allowed for each source, but some sources will require more space than that. Mention each article or book by title and mention the author’s name. Describe the information that the source provided and explain to the reader why that information was valuable or important to your project.

The Final Paragraph: Use the final paragraph to briefly summarize the results of your research, and subtly remind your reader what question you are trying to answer.

Arrange all of your sources into a Works Cited format (using NoodleBib) and include it at the end of your written report.

1/12/09 Tonight's Assignment

Go to Google Docs.
Open the document titled: Sci.Proj. Template

Type in: your Statement of Problem, an Hypothesis, and a (step-by-step) Procedure.

In the Literature Review section, begin summarizing the information that you have been researching in the computer lab at school or on your computer at home.

Watching videos can lead to higher grades!

Be sure to watch the incredible "Rube Goldberg" videos on the video bar below--you may even earn some extra points on the next quiz or test!

Time to narrow down your topic!

Now's the time to get together with your partners and chose a "Statement of Problem". At this point you may have two or three that you still like, but you should write down a hypothesis for each one (no more than 3 total) and a rough outline of the procedure you plan to employ to test each hypothesis. You can use the 'Project Report Template' in your Google Docs account for this purpose. Good luck!