Hi all,
Any comments on this brainstorm?
Sam

I like the slide show better than the one pager. I made and underlined comments on each slide I hope it worked. If not, I think this is a great jumping off point.
No I don't think there are to many SLEs and all are important. I think on the essential questions we need to mention alternative forms or resources. May not have time for flying tinsel due to static may be one more direction and we need to focus. I am certain we need a connection beween first days and future days. Love the 5 minute university, just need to be careful to not end up having 5 minute dumping stations instead. I think we should bring some ideas for the 5 minute universities to get an idea of what we are doing - remember biology specialist will be teaching this too!

Not sure how we are using the motion probes and solar cars. What are we measuring and how?

Good question, Pam. How about measuring the cars' motion with the Go-Motion probe, maybe experimenting with changing the mass of the cars, collecting data on velocity and acceleration, seeing how that affects F=ma?
Or determining velocity with the Go-Motion probe and connecting it with a calculation of Kinetic Energy... KE = 1/2mv2....Energy measured in Joules...connections between Work, Power, Watts, energy measurements of solar panel?
Opportunities to use the measurement of motion, (velocity), determining the mass of the car with digital scale in kit, knowing the wattage of the lamp that is input of energy into the solar panel -- basically using motion to compare the efficiency of the transfer of energy?

So we would not be measuring solar energy more of acceleration. I would think to measure the solar energy it would have to do with time.

Measuring solar energy does relate to time, in that the output of a solar cell is measured in Watts or Joules/second.
I think that the bridge between the force/motion curriculum standards and the energy/energy transfer ones is Kinetic Energy.
Work involves a force which requires energy for the capacity to do that work, while power describes the rate at which the work is done (which is quantified in watts.)

The challenge is to make that connection, through KE, with investigations in a one-day module.

Other alternative energy systems are all basically energy transfer systems, using wind or geothermal or biomass or hydroelectric to cause a turbine to mechanically move and generate an electric current. Questions of cost, efficiency, and environmental impact (not to mention politics, economics, and social concerns) drive the decision-making on the future of these alternatives.

One thought that occurred to me, after reading Mary's comment above, "remember biology specialist will be teaching this too," was that the solar photovoltaic cell is really just like photosynthesis...both are systems that convert photons of light - transfer them - into either electrical energy (solar cell) or chemical energy (photosynthesis). Both processes are determined, fundamentally, by the very nature of matter - the properties of the atom, as electron/energy transfer are determined by the structure of the particular atoms (form determines function.)
This task will not be easy, but we can do it.
What do you think?

The test has been taken down from the site and I needed an electronic copy for a wkshop Karon and I are conducting.

Curtis,
I located that document, linked it to replace the Survey Monkey link, and emailed it to you as well.
Sam