Review for:Logger Pro

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posted: on December 12, 2006 at 12:01PM

My rating of this resource: ****

My experience using this resource:
Physics

Topic I was teaching:
Energy Conservation (freely falling object)

My learning goal for which this resource was used:
Review equations of motion for a freely falling object
Attempt to verify energy conservation for an object acted on by a gravitational force only

Course Level:
Honors or Advanced

How I/my students used the resource:
I demonstrated the experiment (using a projector and Smart Board) in which a soccer ball was tossed upward and allowed to drop back down over an ultrasonic motion detector. Student then collected their own data (in pairs), using the provided experiment template that comes with the Logger Pro software. Data was exported to Excel, the relevant portion of a large data set was selected, and students used distance and velocity vs. time data to construct and fit graphs to uniform acceleration equations and also to calculate and plot graphs of kinetic, potential, and total mechanical energy.

Value Added:
Increases graphing skills, Increases data collection & analysis skills

Strengths:
Provided experiments are well designed and easy to implement. Data collected are generally of high quality and give results that are easy to interpret.

Weaknesses:
In order for students to be able to analyze data outside the classroom, it was necessary to go through the cumbersome process of exporting a text file and then using Excel to import the text file and re-save it as an Excel file.

Researching the Wireless High School: Effects on Science Teaching and Implications for Professional Development, Copyright 2013 TERC.
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