Week One Summer 2010 Shortcourse : Math in Science Context: Assignment Questions Post Answers

Week One Summer 2010 Shortcourse : Math in Science Context: Assignment Questions Post Answers: "Questions for Wed: These are some questions regarding density that could go on the blog. 1. Did the true value for density fall within the ..."


1. Did the true value for density fall within the confidence interval? What is the significance of the confidence interval with respect your experimentally measured density and the true value of density?
Our true value did not fall within the confidence interval. Our experimental value was within 90 to 95 percent of the true value.

2. Does the interval increase or decrease and as the confidence level changes from 90 to 95 to 99% and is the change intuitive? Could you explain the change to your students conceptually?
As the confidence level goes up, the confidence interval must become wider. When I’m hitting a golf ball toward a green, I say to myself, “I’d have to hit this shot 10 times to hit the green once”. Thus, my confidence level is 10%. If I wanted to hit the green 90% of the time for the same shot, I might want to increase the size of the green in order to accomplish this. Unfortunately, if I was trying to hit the golf ball into water, I’d have a 100% confidence in my ability to accomplish the task, no matter how small the body of water.

3. The procedure for measuring density for the liquid used a graphical approach as opposed to our three trials and average method for determining the density of the solid. If you made a determinant (human) error for your first measurement in the liquid density portion, would this error plague or affect the subsequent measurements? (try to think of a situation where it would not and a situation where it would).
The fact that the measurement is cumulative means that the error on the first trial is worked out of successive computations. Had we emptied the beaker and started from zero each time, then the error would have accumulated into each computation. Assuming the person releasing the liquid from the buret into the beaker will not be off by more than one graduate, the size of the potential error on each pour would start at 1 graduate in 5, but would be reduced to 1 in 35.

4. Look at the plot for light intensity, again. Look at this expression of yesterday's question: Can you think of any light sources that might not give a inverse square law drop off? Also, determine the power output of your bulb in the light lab
A laser would not be subject to the inverse square law. The power output of our bulb was 67 lumen or .099watts/meter squared.

5. Discuss the tech tools you are using (blog, google docs, excel, lab quests and probes) and how you might use them (or not) in your teaching? Why?

I don’t see myself using a google docs because our school server has a document upload system on it. I use that regularly. Access to any uploaded document is on the web, so anyone can get to them. All of the things we use Excel for are currently being done on our graphing calculators with a graphlink cable. I would like to learn more Excel so as to be able to have students learn it as I’d imagine the college bound seniors going to need it. I don’t see myself blogging in any way. I would definitely like to use the probes and lab quests to supplement the things I am teaching in calculus and precealculus.