Today in class Dave introduced gravity and its various effects within space. One of the examples of gravity's effects was the shapping of a galaxy within the universe. By dropping a ball, Dave showed how forces cause accelaration to increase or decrease. Thanks to Dave the class understood that acceleration due to gravity is constant at 9.8 m/s/s and that the initial velocity for a falling object is 0 m/s. He later engaged the class to time how long it took for a falling object, which in this case was the ball, to hit the ground. The class realized, despite using a stopwatch, that human error occurs when measuring how long a falling object takes to drop to the ground.
The class later got in groups of three where they were given paper,a pencil, a stopwatch, rope,a meter stick and three balls per foup. Each group measured their rope at a given height and dropped the ball within that given length. One person from each group had a timer and timed how long it took the ball to land on the ground. Each timer was told not to look at the ball, but to stop the stopwatch when he/she heard the ball drop. At one point two teams had the same time measurements. The class later calculated the average time, average height, position and velocity for each ball dropped per group using a spreadsheet within Microsoft Excel. Many of the students enjoyed the exercise and one student enjoyed using Microsoft Excel.
During the second half of class Dave decided to get more in depth with glaxies. Dave and the class gave various descriptions of several galaxies, such as Andromena, the Milky Way etc. The class then opened the Galaxsee program where each student modeled stars within their created galaxy. Each student was given the option to observe what effects would occur when a rotational force acted upon the galaxy.