The TOPS Program, located at Marc Garneau C.I. (Toronto, ON), is a special high school program for students interested in enrichment in the maths, sciences, and language arts. TOPS offers a strong leadership program and encourages students to reach their utmost ability.
Another day, another lab! For our last practice lab before the grade 11 chemistry summative, we combined a solution of copper sulfate with iron. Using knowledge from many of our previous chemistry units, we found the limiting reagent and compared the moles of the elements to determine the valence of copper.
After a month of planning and designing, we finally presented our Rube Goldberg machines in grade 12 physics. Our machines are designed to perform simple tasks in intricate ways consisting of multiple steps and energy transfers. Examples of tasks our machines performed include cutting hair and ripping toilet paper.
After 4 long months of limits, derivatives, and integrals, it seems like calculus can solve just about anything. We started our final unit—applications of integration—by using our prior integration knowledge to calculate the area bounded by multiple functions. We will start with differential equations and revolutions in the upcoming year.
Fact: TOPS kids love science. Every Friday, the biology and chemistry club meets to try new and interesting experiments in the science lab. This week, we combined sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, and an indicator to create some colourful titrations. We also found out the winners of the crystal-making competition.
After we learned integration by parts in grade 11 AP calculus, we went on a tangent to apply this knowledge to trigonometric functions and substitutions. By then, we had acquired a fraction of the skills needed to integrate rational functions. With long division and partial fractions on our side, we can integrate problems of all shapes and sizes!
This week, we started our physics unit on electricity in grade 9 science class. Over the last few days, we learned about the positively shocking properties of static electricity and observed these properties in action using the pith ball and metal leaf electroscopes.
