•
It’s that time of year again when we all go back to our classrooms - you as learners and us as teachers. It always amazes me how much (and how little) changes over the summer months. This year we’ve got a pretty big change in the form of a new A-level course.
First up - Don’t panic if you’re moving up to year 13 - there’s no change to your course! This only applies to you if you’re moving into year 12, ie you’re starting your course next week;
So what’s different?
Well, quoting straight from the AQA website;
The new redrafted specification has been designed to:
provide a traditional approach to teaching physics familiar to those following the previous AQA specifications
develop interest and enthusiasm for the subject, including further study and careers
illustrate how society makes decisions about scientific issues and how the sciences contribute to the success of the economy
foster a variety of teaching styles, leaving the teacher to select appropriate contexts and applications to bring the subject alive and emphasise its relevance and key role in today’s technological society.
develop and demonstrate a deeper appreciation of the skills, knowledge and understanding of how science works
In all practical terms it’s a re-shuffle of order and the content changes slightly - the biggest impacts on you as a student are that old revision guides might not fit and you can’t use the notes etc from past students.
One of the things you should do as a student starting any course is to get fammiliar with what you need to learn, a good way for you to do this is to download and read:
The AQA Physics Scheme of Work
It is a good idea to keep a copy in your folder of notes so that you can tick-off and track points as we address them.
•
Something that we all have to do is revise, I’ve been revising my knowledge of audio authoring and php coding for the website and it inspired a thought - I spend a little bit of time teaching revision skills but not as long as I would like so here’s a little refresher;
Oh and singing along to the song at the end is not compulsory!
Revision Technique:
Play Now |
Download
•
My first podcast for jrowing.com contains info from CERN and an introduction to the site….
No - nor am I - but that what a few nutters “eccentrics” are predicting will happen on the 10th September when CERN fires up it’s large hadron collider for the first time.
Along with the vast majority of physicists I am hoping for great things from the LHC.
The LHC is a 27 km long ring of superconducting magnets that will accelerate two beams of protons up to a mind-bending 7TeV in each direction, to put it another way the protons will be lapping the 17 mile loop once every 90 micro seconds or so!
It is hoped that when the two streams collide, the collision will produce the elusive Higgs boson, the observation of which could confirm the predictions and “missing links” in the Standard Model of physics and could explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass. The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would be a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory, which seeks to unify three of the four known fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force, leaving out only gravity. The Higgs boson may also help to explain why gravitation is so weak compared to the other three forces. As well as the Higgs boson, other weird particles might be produced, including things called; strangelets, micro black holes, magnetic monopoles and supersymmetric particles!
Of course, if the Higgs particle is not discovered then the news is even bigger - basically we scrap a lot of the leading theories of physics, and start again!
Keep your eyes on the news because whatever happens it’s going to be exciting!
•
Cartoon Laws of Physics - Authorship Unknown
Cartoon Law I
Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over.
Cartoon Law II
Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge’s surcease.
Cartoon Law III
Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the specialty of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.
Read more »
•
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bloom/
Bloom - “Smart choices for the carbon concious”. With the great focus of the curriculum on green issues (every 2nd answer seems to be “Global warming”) this might become a useful resource.
Check it out & let me know what you think in the comments
Loading ...
