Saturday 30 July 2016

World's fastest jet crew reunites with SR-71 spy plane

Read this interesting article about the two crew members who reunited after 40 years with the once super-secret spy plane, number 17958 Blackbird SR-71, that put them in the history books.

What amazing achievement it was! All possible through physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, etc. The article has a nice video as well. In case the article becomes unavailable, you can download the text here as a pdf file (1,6MB).


On the 4th of June 2005, I was fortunate to see a Blackbird SR-71 (picture on the left) in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. In the distant background, behind the Blackbird, one of Nasa's space shuttles, is visible. If you are interested to see more about this Blackbird, click this link.

Wednesday 27 July 2016

GEC Expo Physical Science Quiz - 2016


Physical science teachers are invited to enter a team of two grade 12 learners to participate in this year’s GEC EXPO Physical Science Quiz at CUT on the 27th August.

The quiz starts at 09:00 sharp and will end approximately at 12:00.

The quiz consists of different rounds namely:

  • A written quiz of 20 multiple choice questions;
  • oral quizzes;
  • a practical activity; and
  • brain teasers.

The content of these rounds will mainly be based on the physical science school syllabus with some mathematics questions and riddles.

Entries close on Monday 22nd of AugustPlease complete the entry form (download here) and fax to Adele Smit at 057 352 9606. No late entries will be accepted.

Saturday 23 July 2016

Presentation on beams

Videos in which beams, shear forces and bending moments are discussed are available for our grade 10 technical science teachers. They will be informed how to get hold of the videos.



The presentation used in the videos is available here and the questions (plus one extra) are available here. Feedback is welcome; either as comments below this post or send me an email. Look at the left side of the home page, near the top, for the email address.

Thursday 21 July 2016

Free State Physical Science Olympiad


The Free State physical science olympiad will DV be written on Monday, 25 July 2016More than a thousand grade 11 and 12 learners will take part in the olympiad and a hundred can qualify to attend the Free State Science Convention.


The convention is scheduled for 22 and 23 August 2016.

Best wishes to every learner!!

Monday 18 July 2016

Welcome back!

Welcome back in term three! Enjoy the opportunity to make a difference and best wishes!

Wednesday 13 July 2016

We as teachers should make children believe in themselves

I stumbled across this story about Thomas Edison on a blog called All things beautiful. The moral of the story is to make children believe in themselves; that is what we as teachers should do! Here is the story.

One day, Thomas Edison came home and gave a paper to his mother. He told her, "My teacher gave this paper to me and told me to only give it to my mother."

His mother’s eyes were tearful as she read the letter out loud to her child: "Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn't have enough good teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself."

After many, many years, Edison's mother died, and he had become one of the greatest inventors of the century. One day he began looking through old family things. Suddenly he saw a folded paper in the corner of a drawer in a desk. He took it and opened it up. On the paper was written: "Your son is addled [mentally ill]. We won't let him come to school any more."

Edison cried for hours and then he wrote in his diary: "Thomas Alva Edison was an addled child that, by a hero mother, became the genius of the century."

Wednesday 6 July 2016

Submission of mark sheets and error analyses for June

Thank you to the large number of teachers who have already submitted their spreadsheets with marks (grades 12 to 10) and the quantitative error analyses (grade 12).

Tuesday 5 July 2016

Great news! Juno is in orbit around Jupiter

The Juno satellite, which left Earth five years ago, is in orbit around Jupiter. What an achievement!

More information here:
BBC News
Juno NASA
Twitter

Monday 4 July 2016

Nice tips for your exam preparation

Read this article in today's Netwerk24 news service. If you cannot read Afrikaans, just copy and paste into a translation service. Useful hints are given by Mr Cronjé Oosthuizen, HOD of Alexander Road High School in Port Elizabeth. You will also find very useful addresses of further websites in the above-mentioned article. Thanks for all of this to Mr Oosthuizen.