Nov 19, 2005

The workshop started with Kari and Matt introducing themselves as the instructors for the workshop. Then, Kari showed the students how to get to Moodle where the students can keep in touch with the Shodor staff and each other, outside of the Shodor workshops. After the students got acquainted with Moodle, Matt introduced the concept of Gravity, and Newton's Laws. After Matt made sure that they understood the concept of gravity, he showed them how to get to a website where they could see a graph of the force of gravity acting on an object.

The next step was for the students to be divided into two groups, and each group was asked to use materials, provided by Shodor, in order for them to be able to come up with their own data which they were able to graph on the Gravity website. After each group collected their data, and graphed it, it was time for break.

After break, Kari showed them how to use StarryNight which is an astronomy program. Kari told the students what a constellation, and how the sky is divided into 88 constelations. To help the students understand the concept of constellations better, Kari associated each of the 50 states in the US with each of the 88 constellations in the sky. While using the program, students got the chance to see their astrological sign.

At the end of the workshop, each student was responsible for filling out an evaluation for the workshop on the Moodle site.