Operation Plastic Removal

A lot has been going on here, but I really should keep it short because I need to get up early early tomorrow to meet a carpool to drive to Montreal for a training in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). Turns out I'm the leader of my department's PLC, which I suppose is a little like being science department chair. Gah. I just thought about that for realsies today, and it kinda scared me a little bit cause, man, I don't like being in charge. :P bleh. Nonetheless I find myself going to this training tomorrow to become a better PLC leader. Yea.

Meanwhile the Period 7-8 physics class has formed an organization they've named Operation Plastic Removal, or OPR. There's also now officially a facebook group (but I think you have to be invited to join - sorry guys).

The OPR news is that the cafeteria wants nothing to do with renting bottles. This made us pause a bit and re-evaluate what our goals were. We determined that a suitable solution would be to sell mason jars with full screw-top lids. Simultaneously a student came up with a REALLY sweet t-shirt design based on an SNL skit about Sofa King Cool. ha. It's a funny shirt (if you don't get it just say it 5 times really fast). Aaaaand it also involves mason jars. Nice. We'll definitely sell a bunch. I want one and I don't even swear. So we figured we could sell these T-shirts and give away mason jars with them. In addition we could sell Mason Jars alone for 50 cents (cheaper than buying water in the cafeteria).

At this point no one has done the financial analysis to estimate payback time, but that may be a next step, right along with the taste test scheduled for tomorrow - to determine which water fountain in the school is the tastiest.


Meanwhile, what will this have to do with physics? haha - you thought I'd forgotten. Well, what's the downside of mason jars? They break. So what I'd love to do is get different thickness socks, or beer cozies, or the like, and do some impact/impulse/crash test measurements to see what impulse they can withstand. This is totally momentum, force, impact, change in motion ~ basically a physics fiesta. (Ok, now I'm starting to sound like my students, so it's time to go to bed).

Cheers*