Royal wave
Queen Sonja of Norway is the patron of UWCRCN and yesterday she visited our school (News item). She likes to see all sides of life at the college and this time science classes were on the agenda. She...
Balloons with no charge
This week my first year classes have been doing a design experiment related to balloons. I started with my usual spiel about the physical properties of balloons, the pressure of the air inside them, bounciness,...
Variations in G
It didn't take more than a couple of seconds before I saw the date at the top of this article -on climbers website UK Climbing - and realised this was an April fool's joke. The article suggests that variation...
Universe sandbox
One of my students (Antonio) sent me a link to this superb universe simulator, Universe sandbox. I've only just downloaded it but it looks great. The full version costs $9.95 but so far I've just got...
Letter to the moderator
I've just finished putting together my sample for the moderator, which sounds dubious for those not familiar with the IB but it isn't. I mark electronically so the only time I see students work on paper...
EE Happiness
Today was what we call a global concerns day, the theme was happiness and we had everything that makes students happy. Short presentations by their friends, chocolate biscuits at break, hamburgers for...
New discovery in the battery bucket
My first year classes have been doing the conductivity paper experiment this week so I had to get out the box of 9V batteries. The problem is the box contains a mix of new and old so the first thing students...
Old dog new tricks
I've had a SMART board for about 6 years but am still learning new tricks. Thanks to Mazen for this neat way of grouping objects. In this example I want to rotate the Michelson Morley apparatus so need...
Don't Mock
Today my students are taking their trial exam, some people call it a mock exam but I don't think it should be mocked. When invigilating real exams you can't do things like write blog post of course since...
The google wave challenge
Last weekend I was at the subject specific seminar in Istanbul getting as much information as possible about the new syllabus. When discussing possible investigation topics Andreas (Tsokos) our workshop...