Here is a form for predictions about class experiments and your group experiments. Please be sure to fill in the correct form. Arigato gozaimasu.
9D MYP Physics April 23rd
1. Complete the Chapter 1 Review in the textbook (pages 22-23).
2. Work on the following assignment. It will be homework to complete it if you don’t finish it in class today.
Choose an element. No two students should choose the same element.
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Introduce your element: who discovered it? Is it a metal / non-metal / metalloid? What is it used for?
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Introduce how to read a Periodic table through your atom. Include symbol, atomic mass, atomic number. Show how to find out the number of protons, electrons and neutrons.
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What period or group is your element in? What does this tell us about the element?
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Include an electron diagram for your element.
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Does your element have any isotopes? If so – what are they and what percentage does each have?
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Any other interesting facts or pieces of information about your element?
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Bibliography using MLA referencing.
It is best to make the poster on the computer and print it (in colour) on A3 paper, however if you prefer there is white paper available on my desk, and you may use the pens etc behind the whiteboard.
If you complete this, you may continue working on the laboratory skills practice worksheets (given out last week) in preparation for the upcoming exam.
category: Grade 9 MYP Physics
Light and Sight Study Guide
Test Date (9D): Thursday March 21st
You should be able to:
1. State and explain that waves carry energy but not matter, and that they can be used to carry information.
2. Define amplitude, wavelength, frequency and speed, and label the first three on a diagram.
3. Identify transverse and longitudinal waves from diagrams.
4. Use the wave equation (speed = frequency * wavelength) to solve problems. For example, William shouts across the room at Melanie. If his voice has a frequency of 1.5kHz, and the speed of sound on that day is 340m/s, what is the wavelength of William’s voice?
5. State that sound is a longitudinal wave.
6. Describe a way to measure the speed of sound (this could be the way we did it in class, but it does not need to be).
7. Describe the relationships (for sound) between pitch and frequency, and between volume and amplitude, and identify diagrams of sound waves as higher, lower, louder or quieter than others. (The waves will be drawn as transverse waves.)
8. Recall that humans can hear approximately 20 Hertz to 20 kiloHertz.
9. Describe what factor/s contribute to the speed of water waves and sound waves (in the atmosphere).
10. Explain, in simple terms, the phenomena of refraction, reflection and diffraction, and identify examples of each. For example, why is it easier to hear the waves than the seagulls from over sand dunes at the beach, or why is it that if loud music is being played nearby (around a corner or through a doorway, but not in ‘line of sight’) the base (low frequency) sounds louder than the vocals (higher frequency).
11. Describe the difference between AM and FM radio waves, including why FM produces better sound, but AM is easier to receive in the countryside.
12. Describe what happens to light as it enters are more dense medium (slows down and bends towards the normal) and when it enters a less dense medium (speeds up and bends away from the normal). You should be able to complete ray diagrams to show the behaviour of light for differently shaped objects (eg rectangular block, triangular prism, convex lens).
13. Explain why a coin looks like it is in a different place in a cup of water to where it really is.
14. Describe and explain total internal reflection, including identifying situations in which it occurs. You should be able to label the critical angle on the diagram below.
15. Explain why diamonds sparkle (hint: diamond has a low critical angle).
category: Grade 9 MYP Physics
Grade 10 Mock Exam Guide
This is not really a study guide, since the test includes content from the last year and a half. However, here are a few suggestions.
First, here is the official IGCSE Coordinated Science Syllabus.
I suggest your best resources are your own notes (?) and the textbook. Relevant chapters are all of chapter 1 (as essential skills), all of chapter 2, all of chapter 3 except pages 62-70 (covered in the final energy resources unit), all of chapter 4 up to seismic waves (nothing from page 112), all of chapter 5 and all of chapter 6. The mock exam will not include and chapters 7 (next unit), 8 (unfortunately not covered in IGCSE) or the ‘Further Topics’. For students sitting the Modified Mock Exam, it will only cover this year’s work, which has been chapters 4 and 6 (not seismic waves starting page 112).
Also, all my presentations are below. I personally do not recommend using these as a study resource, because I make them to support my classroom teaching, for example to show images, work through sample problems or sometimes just to (hopefully) create an interesting context for teaching the concepts. For this reason, not everything here is in the syllabus (but it should all help in the learning of the syllabus, if indirectly), and not everything in the syllabus is necessarily here (as it may have been covered elsewhere in the course). The textbook, however, is designed to be a resource for students to read and study from independently, so I recommend it for this purpose. However, since everyone finds different study strategies effective (and because people request them) here they are.
Light and Waves
Magnetism and Electromagnetism
The final Energy Resources and Radioactivity units in the presentation below are NOT covered in the upcoming mock exam; I am embedding them here only so that all my presentations for this year are in one place.
If you have any questions about the mock exam or of course the physics itself, please email me.
category: Grade 10 IGCSE Physics
Wave on a String
This PHET simulation may help understand how waves pass through a medium.
Select: Amplitude of 50, Frequency of 10, Damping of 0 and “No end”
category: Grade 9 MYP Physics
Influenza and DNA
Read the following article and answer the following questions in your notebook.
1. Describe what a “single code change” might be. What is the scientific term for this occurrence?
2. Is this one likely to be helpful, harmful or neutral?
3. Suggest a reason that the gene is currently common among Han Chinese but uncommon among European populations.
4. Summarise the article in a your own words. It only needs to be a few sentences.
category: 8B and 8C Science
Arriving Safely Study Guide
The test will be on Thursday 7th February.
You should be able to:
Calculate using large numbers, either by typing lots of zeros (before or after the decimal point) or (preferably) by using scientific notation.
Use and convert to and from metric prefixes including nano, micro, milli, kilo, mega and giga. For example, you should be able to state how many pm in a Mm.
Discuss the benefits of having an international system of units.
State the SI units for the three base quantities used so far (mass, length and time).
Calculate speed/velocity, distance and time using the formula speed=distance/time.
Note: the formula will be supplied in the test.
Convert km/hr to m/s and vice versa. You may use a ‘shortcut’ and don’t need to explain why the shortcut works.
Describe what acceleration is, and what it feels like to accelerate, with examples.
Calculate acceleration, change in velocity/speed and time taken using the formula
acceleration = change in velocity / time
Calculate weight using Weight = Mass * gravity, where the value for gravity is 10 (or 9.8) N/kg.
Define the term inertia, and describe its connection with mass.
Discuss why a hammer and a feather fall at the same rate on the moon, despite the fact that the feather has much lower mass.
Describe some factors which affect terminal velocity.
Discuss why a heavier object falls faster on Earth than a lighter object with the same surface area (Galileo’s Ping Pong Drop).
Describe the distance between vectors and scalars, and state some examples of each.
Explain the difference between speed and velocity, and the difference between distance and displacement.
Sketch velocity-time graphs and displacement-time graphs for given motion. You should be familiar with how a stationary object, constant speed, acceleration and deceleration all appear on both graphs.
Calculate the distance travelled by an object by calculating the area under the graph of a velocity-time graph.
Use the formula momentum=mass x velocity (p=mv) to calculate the momentum, velocity or mass of an object.
Use conservation of momentum to determine the speed of two objects after they have collided and stuck together.
You should be able to do (if you haven’t already) all problems in the textbook from pages:
21, 23, 25, 33, 35, 39, 41 (note that what we called ‘drag’ is called ‘fluid friction’ on page 41).
Of course it shouldn’t be necessary to do all of these problems, but this is a guide of what we’ve covered in this unit.
category: Grade 9 MYP Physics
Grade 8 Inheritance and Evolution Study Guide
The date for the test has been put back. It will now be on February 5th for 8B and February 7th for 8C.
Additional links which may help with test preparation:
Other resources:
Class Presentation:
Inheritance and evolution booklet
Terminology definitions
These Brainpops will reinforce some of the main ideas:
Brainpop – Heredity
Brainpop – Genetic mutations
Brainpop – Natural selection
Brainpop- Human evolution
Brainpop – Extinction
Brainpop – Fossils
Brainpop – carbon dating
Simulations:
http://learn.genetics.utah.
http://learn.genetics.utah.
Natural selection
Radioactive dating
Here is the study guide:
1. Explain who Mendel was, what he experimented with and the most important thing his experiments proved.
Hint: dominant and recessive.
2. Explain the connection between genotypes and phenotypes. For example, if R is right handed and r is left handed, you should be able to work out the phenotype of someone with a genotype Rr, or state the two possible genotypes of a right handed person.
3. Use punnet squares to determine possible genotypes and phenotypes of offspring, and their expected ratios.
4. Look at a pedigree chart and determine whether or not the trait shown is dominant or recessive.
5. State how many chromosomes humans have, and how many we get from each parent.
6. Explain how the gender of offspring is determined, including whether or not it comes from the sperm or the egg, and draw a punnet square to show that there is a 50% chance of a baby being a girl (or a boy).
7. Explain what DNA is and how it stores genetic code (you do not need to remember what DNA stands for, or any of the base pairs). You should be able to recall that ‘A’ pairs with ‘T’ and ‘C’ with ‘G’. Describe the relationship between the following terms: gene, chromosome, DNA, allele.
8. Explain what a mutation is, and how it is related to DNA. Why can mutations be described as positive, negative or neutral?
9. Bats, cats, whales and humans all have skeletal structures which vaguely resemble a ‘hand’ with five ‘fingers’. Explain what this suggests about the origins of all these species.
10. Humans have a tailbone but no tail. Why is this?
11. Explain, in simple terms, what radioactive dating is used for and why it is so important for the study of the evolution of life on Earth.
12. Explain what an adaptation is and describe two adaptations in animals that make them well suited to their environment (including humans).
13. Explain the process of natural selection and how this leads to the evolution of species. Give examples of adaptations that have happened as a result of natural selection (eg giraffes and neck length). For this, you should have a good understanding of the ‘bunnies evolution’ exercise.
14. Explain the process of selective breeding, one benefit and one problem it can cause, and give at least two examples of species which have been selectively bred for humans.
Note: 8B and 8C have not done this yet.
15. Define the term Hominid.
16. Put the four eras of Earth’s history in order and match them with the types of organisms that existed in each era.
Note: you do NOT need to memorise the time periods for each. The names will be given and you will need to put them in order.
category: 8B and 8C Science
History of Life on Earth Graphic
Images are really useful for conveying information, but they can be misleading. The image above is probably the most famous image for evolution. Unfortunately it gives the impression that evolution is a simple change that has a clear direction and that applies to people and not to all life. It also does not really give a good impression of the amount of time involved . In reality, evolution requires diversity and leads to a very wide range of outcomes over enormous periods of time.
Your job is to make a graphic that better show how life has developed on earth over time.
Start with the following questions:
How old is the earth (and how do we know)
When did the first life begin?
The history of life on earth can be divided into eras: Pre-cambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic. For these eras, what was happening to life on earth and how long did they last?
What was the Cambrian explosion and when did it happen?
When are humans thought to have first appeared?
If you drew a line 10 cm long to represent the life of the earth from it’s formation to now, for how much of the line would humans have existed?
if you drew a line 10 cm long to represent the time from life first being formed on earth to now, for how much of the line would humans have existed?
If you drew a line 10 cm long to represent the time from the first mammals forming intil to now, for how much of the line would humans have existed?
How many different species exist in the world at the moment? How has this changed over time?
What is extinction? How long does a typical species last before becoming extinct?
What are the oldest species around at the moment?
category: 8B and 8C Science
