Do Performance Plots Reliably Indicate the Blessability of Data?

(first draft)

The purpose of this activity is to provide students with some experience interpreting performance plots and blessing plots.  I would assign this activity after students have performed an experiment or two using either data already uploaded by someone else or, if possible, new data taken here with a detector.

1)  Show students a performance plot;  observe the axis labels and discuss the physical meaning;  predict the difference between performance plots from detectors that performed steadily and those that did not.

2)  Show students a blessing plot;  observe the axis labels and discuss the physical meaning;  what does the plot say about how the detector performed?

3)  Ask students to propose a way to answer the experimental question;  then, provide assistance as needed with navigating around the e-lab site and manipulating the plots for comparison.

4)  Conclusion should answer the experimental question in the format:  Claim;  Evidence;  Reasoning

5)  Students should create and upload a poster detailing their work and their conclusion.

Here is the link to the poster (thank you for the instructions, Ken!):

https://www.i2u2.org/elab/cosmic/posters/display.jsp?type=paper&name=23july2014poster-cosmic-dgigante-diana_gigante-greenwood_high_school-bowling_green-ky-2014.0723.data

I would show that poster to the students only if theirs was waaaay better!  It pleases me greatly when they surpass me!