M4.3.3

Makes effective use of a meter stick for making measurements.

Why is Summer Hot?

It is quite common for people to believe that summer is warmer than winter,
basing the explanation on the belief that Earth is closer to the Sun during the
summer than in the winter. Even a sizable fraction of Harvard graduates carry
this belief (Schneps, 1987, mentioned in Green, 2003). In reality, this is exactly
opposite the situation in the northern hemisphere. The separation of Earth and
Sun is greatest at the beginning of July and least at the beginning of January.
More direct sunlight and the greater duration of daytime in summer months

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When a Ruler Is Too Short

Surveyors are often seen in the middle of the street making careful measurements of angles with their transits, and distances with their steel tapes. For points than can be easily reached, such a survey is convenient. But when the target is inaccessible – a mountain summit or a distant star – known distances can be combined with measured angles to determine a distance or altitude. The method relies on parallax, the way an object appears to move, relative to a more distant background, when viewed from different angles.

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The Fall of the Ruler

This activity teaches how an ordinary ruler can measure (human reaction) time.

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Seeing Interference Fringes

Demonstrate the wave nature of light by projecting interference patterns. Detecting the interference of waves is one of the most powerful methods in science for measuring wave phenomena, and using the waves and their interference can reveal underlying details of their sources and the materials through which they travel.

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Right Place, Wrong Time

It's important to check the results from an experiment. Does the result make sense? Does it follow from other facts that are known? From the standpoint of teaching High School science, checking if one's results are sensible adds an additional layer of safety that the results are correct. (From the standpoint of advancements in Science, a basic research tenet is that results must be repeatable and not just a fluke.

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Metric Wins!

There have been many metric systems, or systems of measurement. On 7 April 1795 the National Convention of France decreed new "Republican Measures" to be legal measures in France. The units of measurement included the meter, liter, and gram; the prefixes centi, deci, deca, hecto, and kilo were also sanctioned. This was the decimal system of measurement or the decimal metric system. It has survived practically unchanged and now is known simply as the metric system. The latest version of the system is the International System of Units or SI for short.

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