The could take the test if they wanted, they could write a 2 page research paper on the solar topic of their choice, or they could build a 3 dimensional model of the sun.
Many of the students are choosing to do the model and came up with some pretty cool ideas. It appears that I will have at least one cake/Rice Krispie treat sun in each class and let me tell you how devastated I am about THAT.
One of my students is exploring the idea of making a pop-up book style poster with the various layers of the sun. A few others talked about buying a Styrofoam ball and cutting a slice out. I think there are some truly interesting ideas here and I'm excited to see what they come up with.
While they were working, I got out the hexagons! I built my own solar model, complete with core, radiative zone, convection zone, photosphere, sunspots, corona, solar flares and coronal mass ejections!
I continued to be discouraged by the work ethic of many of the students in Honors Physics. I think we are at the point where their intelligence has brought them success for the past 11 year in school and so now, several of them don't know how to work, or even what are Honors level expectations.
This is by no means all of them and, unfortunately, several students have the disadvantage that they were placed in my class without having completed the pre-requisite courses. I don't blame them for this and most of those students are working their butts off to keep up.
I have no problem giving extra help to students who are busting their humps to understand.
Today's physics problem was about relative frames of reference. I had a young man throwing a ball straight up in the air and I placed him on the back of a moving train. We are going to have a chat on Monday about my expectations and it may include throwing things from trains.
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