Would you do experiments with this kind of power?
The Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland uses 9500 magnets to accelerate particles. Each magnet uses 13,000 amps of electrical current (0.2 amps can cause lethal injury to a human). The current is so strong that to keep it from melting everything around it (and creating a black hole?) it is cooled to 1.9 K (-456.2 degrees F). At this temperature outside, our atmosphere would freeze and fall as snow. When two protons are accelerated, they reach 99.99% of the speed of light; at this speed, they have the same momentum as an aircraft carrier sailing at 30 knots. All that power is channeled down a tube the diameter of a human hair where they are smashed into each other.
Activity centers on understanding, invention, and sensemaking by all students.
The culture is one in which wrong answers, personal challenge, collaboration, and disequilibrium provide opportunities for new learning by all students.
A knowledgeable teacher supplies a wide array of problems around a core idea that enables long-lasting, cooperative learning by all students.
You can use formulas to prove anything, if you use the formulas wrong.
You can do anything; and you can do anything poorly.
The observation of real phenomena is the final authority!
Links to files classes need right before spring break:
Env. Chemistry - review for final
Env. Chemistry - review for final, answer key
Perpetual Motion Machine? 
| ©2009 edited by H. Shannon