The physics class did an experiment on Friday & analyzed the data today. On Friday, we went outside and measured off how far we were from the wall of the school, and clapped two pieces of wood together. The idea was to synchronize the claps with the echo, time how long 20 claps took, and use that data to calculate the speed of sound. The class also calculated what it should be based on the air temperature for the day.
Everyone's value was a little high, but some people were closer than others. One set of lab partners got a value of 335 m/s, where we'd calculated 333 m/s - extremely close! The farthest value was the teacher's - he measured over 400 m/s for the speed of sound. One of the students asked about eliminating that piece of data from the set when calculating the average for the whole class, which started an interesting discussion of when you can or can't eliminate data points - and how do you know?
The whole class seems very bright and interested in the subject - it's a joy to help out with them. They'll be starting on kinematics next, and Friday when I'm there Mr. Ambrose is planning to do another lab.
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