Saturday, November 21, 2009
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You are here:  Ben Oliver  

Science/ 7
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This is our 2nd year to offer Pre-AP science.  We are vry excited about this program.  Your students will find that this class will be quite a challange.  All of my classes are graded a little differently thaan other classes.  Basicly, the student is not penalized for wrong answers and get to watch their average drop;  but they recieve points for any assignment attempted and get to watch thier average go up.  I welcome any parent or guardian to come in to view class or to come see me withany questions or comments.  I am really looking forward to this year.

See you in science.

oliver pic.jpg
Ben Oliver
 

Mr. Oliver received a degree in Geology with minors in Chemistry, Physics and Math from Baylor University. He even worked with the Baylor mascots (Little black bears).  Mr. Oliver helped set up the graduate program in Geochemistry and Geophysics at Georgia Tech.

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   A Bridge For Cooking
 This lab asked the students to span the distance between two cups with a piece of spaghetti and then see how many pennys it took to break the bridge. The students found that the greater the distance, the more easily the spaghetti broke. This lab is the first step to understanding simple machines.

Life After School

   All of you will experience many careers and jobs in your lifetime after school. Here were just a few of mine.

1. I worked on a chicken farm my freshmen year in college. (Up at 4:00 in the morning, breakfast at 6:00, and I worked until the sun came down)

2. My Junior year in college, I went to a school to become a rodeo clown. The most important job of a rodeo clown is to protect a bullrider from being gored by the bull after the rider is thrown. (1st rodeo- I got the bull's attention, jumped into a heavy rubber barrell which the bull knocked up into the 2nd row of the stands. I packed my bags and looked for a safer way to make money)

3. After leaving Baylor University, I worked for a chemical plant in Atlanta, Georgia.

4. I decided to join the Army as a 2nd Lieutenant. While in this career, I learned how to parachute out of an airplane, attended several survival camps, spent 3 1/2 years supporting armour units at Ft. Hood, was stationed in Korea, and worked for 3 1/2 years in Germany as a company commander and other high level staff positions.

5. Finished my time in the Army as an instructor at the Defense Mapping School in Virginia, and was sent back to Germany and Thailand, where I trained soldiers in other Armies on how to make maps.

6. Now , in addition to teaching here at Workman (for 15 years), I use Geology maps to locate new mining locations and even operate a Distribution Center for International Trade.

I hope that your work experiences are as rich and varied as mine were.

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3 Labs! 3 Ideas!
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Swingers
The swingers lab was designed to introduce pendellums through experimental design. Using washers as weights and string as the arm, the students were able to find that by changing the mass, the period for one swing out and back, remained the same.
  

 

 

   Come Fly With me!
The students cut out a model of a paper heliocopter and timed it as it fell to the ground. Then a paper clip was added to increase the mass of the heliocopter. The students dropped it from the same height to see if increased mass fell faster. Some of the groups added as many as 5 paper clips.

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