Read Online Sea Glass Winter by Joann Ross - Free Book Online Page B

to have you, Matthew,” said Coach Slater, who was a lot younger than his BHHS coach had been.
    He was wearing jeans, a black sweater over a blue shirt, and blue Converse Chucks. He looked kind of like Ryan Reynolds, from all the comic book superhero movies. His tone was friendly but casual, as if he didn’t realize the player who could save Shelter Bay High School basketball was standing in front of him.
    He introduced Matt to the class. Some managed a mumbled “hi.” The girls openly checked him out, while the guys were a lot less welcoming.
    “You should have been given a lab notebook,” Coach Dillon said.
    “It’s right here.” Matt held up the spiral-bound notebook.
    “Terrific. Take a seat anywhere.”
    There were three empty seats. Two were next to girls whose glossy smiles offered open invitations that were tempting. The third was at the back of the rows of seats. Having learned early in life that kids complained about him blocking their view of the blackboard, Matt chose that one, slouching down on the seat-desk combo, which, like every other one he’d had since third grade, was too small for his height.
    “I don’t know how it was done at your previous school,” the teacher-coach said. “But here you’ll only be documenting the actual lab reports on the right-hand side of the page. The left will be used for lectures or class discussion notes. Your first line should be the title I give you. Then the page will be divided into labeled sections, which should always be included, because your notebook will be part of your grade.
    “As you’ve undoubtedly learned, physics labs always center on a question that’s being investigated. That question should be written as a purpose statement in the first section, labeled Purpose .
    “Next is data and documentation. You can use tables, graphs, diagrams, and observations. I’m not looking for an essay here, or even complete sentences. What you will want to do is show your work for each type of calculation you performed and clearly label and document your findings—because they’ll be evidence you’ll use to draw a conclusion to the question you’ve listed in your purpose.
    “Then you’ll write your conclusion statement, which always refers to the purpose statement. Again, I’m not looking for an essay or thesis here, although the conclusion should be long enough to answer the purpose question.
    “Finally, include any comments on why data may not have proven what you expected it to, variables to the experiment, anything along those lines. . . .
    “Any questions?”
    Matt looked up from madly writing on the inside cover of the lab notebook. He didn’t think the guy had taken a breath while rattling off all those instructions. “No, sir.”
    “Great. So, everyone, listen up,” he called out, stopping the low buzz of conversation that Matt guessed was a lot about him. “Today’s lab is on work, energy, and power, and the question is: ‘What is the effect of varying the release location of a marble along an incline upon the distance which the marble drives a paper plow along a level plane?’
    “You’ll write an equation to describe the effect. Presuming that there is one.”
    He paused while everyone dutifully wrote the question into their lab books.
    “Everyone will be divided into two teams, red and blue. Your purpose will be to determine the effect of the release location—which is the distance from the bottom of the plane—of the marble and determine a mathematical equation describing the relationship between the two variables.”
    Another too-short pause to allow for more scribbling.
    “Once you’ve determined that, the blue team will release the marble from a given location, which you’ll have to determine, that’ll result in it driving your paper plow a distance of two centimeters. Red team, you’ll drive yours for five centimeters.
    “Want to know what reward you’re playing for on this lab assignment?”
    Matt had never had a