For those of you stalking following me, I’m moving this site over to a new domain name. Hopefully it will be better.

www.ScienceClass411.com

My old email will still work. (I haven’t decided on a username for that site yet - maybe “myteacher”?)

Hey kids & parents,

If you haven’t heard yet, after eleven years I’m leaving Sprayberry HS.

It’s hard to say goodbye. I’ve taught a lot of your older brothers & sisters. I’ve taught physical science, chemistry, physics and electric vehicle. I’ve been a part of science team and science olympiad. One of my favorite things has been a student that comes into my class not really caring much about science, who then gets excited about some part of science. It happens with the rocket and egg lander projects and sometimes it just happens during a lab. At the end of each semester someone tells me that “science isn’t my thing, but I’ve really enjoyed your class.” That’s almost as much fun as screaming and running away from a renegade rocket with my students. (The students are the ones screaming, not me.)

I’ve spent a lot of time and effort trying to prepare my students for what comes next. Sometimes it’s someone just trying to finish “this stupid chemistry class so I can graduate” and sometimes it’s helping a former student through email in choosing a college major.

I’ve had a lot of fun teaching you and will miss you a lot! I still get plenty of emails from former students and hope to continue to hear from you!

So what’s next for me? I’m being a traitor family man and transferring to a school close to home. I’ll be at Milton High School in Fulton County. It’s a big change. I’ve lived, worked or gone to school (usually all three at once) in Cobb County continuously for the last 24 years. No - I’m still not telling you how old I am.

Thank you very much for all the fun times and good memories. Remember that learning can be a lot of fun - do it now before you have to grow up. (Why do you think I like being a science teacher?)

Milton High School, Alpharetta, GA

I hope you’re having a good summer!

I’m working in the Microelectronics Research Center on the campus of Georgia Tech again this summer. I get to spend my summer working around and with expensive and dangerous equipment. I practically had a heart attack this afternoon when I was afraid that I was about to drop a $4,000 piece of electrical equipment smaller than a Coke can! It’s a lot of fun!

Here’s the device I’m working on: My job is to come up with a mechanism to move a sample back and forth across a laser beam to measure the light coming from the sample. The sample is housed inside that tall tower in the picture below. The tower will have electrical wires, vacuum lines and liquid nitrogen lines attached to it. The sample has to be several hundred degrees below zero at an ultra-high vacuum (77 Kelvin if you’re counting). The computer will move the sample 1/1000th of a millimeter at a time. You can just see where the sample is mounted - look at the copper triangle in the circular window at the center. That’s an expensive piece of glass that can take the vacuum and temperature extremes. The table that’s sitting on is 4′ x 6′, weighs just under a ton and is floating on a cushion of air to dampen out vibrations. Pretty cool!

Parents and Students: Remember, iParent will be down so that teachers can have access to finishing grades for the semester. If you would like to see your grades (for my class only) after finals, you may email me and I will send you a progress report. my email address

an email from Tech Support to all teachers:

Purpose:
Information regarding I-parent access.

Background:
In order to provide the District with the highest quality of service and availability for SchoolMAX during Finals Week and the End of Year (EOY) processes, the following key dates are being provided to allow advance notice for planning purposes:

iParent - Disabled 7:00 am, Monday May 21 until 7:00 am Monday June 4, 2007

Disabling iParent during Finals Week has proven to alleviate performance issues associated with the EOY activities.

Action:
Do not attempt to access I-Parent during this time period–it will be unavailable. iParent will be enabled again at 7:00am, Monday, June 4, 2007.

Closing:
If you have any questions, please contact the Customer Care Center at 770-426-3330

Thank you for your patience and support.

Here is the web link for the Adding Resistors in Series and Adding Resistors in Parallel labs:
http://www.walter-fendt.de/ph14e/combres.htm

Both labs will be informal lab reports. Yeah!

This Wednesday, May16th, at 7:30 a.m. is the VERY VERY VERY LAST MAKE-UP SESSION!

If you haven’t noticed, our test on Acids and Bases is this Wednesday, May16th.

Friday, May 18th, we will bend glass and make smores! I’ll provide the ‘mallow, you bring the chocolate & graham! (although… some friends of mine prefer what they call smores plus)