Your Name & Your Lab Partners Names

AS 102 Your Name & Your Lab Partners’ Names Due Date

Title of Lab

Introduction: This part of the lab should be in paragraph form and should state the goals of the experiment. It should also include a brief outline of the experiments that you performed. Make sure to include the experiment’s relevance to astronomy or, in other words, why we are doing this experiment. If you want, you can even include a little bit about the background of the subject of the lab.

Equipment: Part I  List the equipment used in the experiment  This includes meter sticks, scales, etc Part II  Group the equipment by experiment  Each list should include all equipment required for that experiment

Procedure: This section gives a detailed explanation of each experiment. The procedure can be done in list form or in paragraph form. You should pretend like the reader has no idea what you did. In other words, be explicit. The reader should be able to recreate the experiment you preformed based on your procedure. Do not simply copy and paste from the lab handout, but describe what you actually did. Numbers are not usually included in the section of the lab except when explaining the experimental set up, i.e. “The cart was place at a starting position 30 cm from the detector.” This section should also be separated by experiment.

Results: This is where you report your results for each experiment. Create tables containing your results so that they are neat and orderly. Be sure to include units for your measurements. Here is an example of what a table should look like:

Mass of ball = 0.22 kg Height = 1 m Kinetic Energy = 2.156 J Trial Crater Depth (m) Crater Width (m) 1st 0.014 0.041 2nd 0.016 0.038 3rd 0.013 0.037

You will usually have about three trials, so put each trial in its own row. The independent, or x, variable(s) will usually go in the far left column, while the dependent, or y, variable(s) will go to the right. Make sure to label your columns. AS 102 Your Name & Your Lab Partners’ Names Due Date If you make any calculations, write down and describe the formulas used. Show each of your calculations once so that we know you understand how the answer was obtained. You can write in your equations by hand or use an equation editor. Here is an example: KE  PE  mgh KE  (0.22kg)(9.8m / s 2 )(1m) KE  2.156J

Some labs require you to make plots. The graph should have a title, all axes should be labeled, and there should a legend explaining each data series. Again, these can be drawn by hand or using a program like Excel.

Width of Crater vs Kinetic Energy

) 0.07 m (

i Ball 1 0.065 W Ball 2 r e t a r

C 0.06

0.04 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kinetic Energy (J) Error Analysis: Error analysis is not required for every lab. It can either be given its own section or it can be included in the Results or Discussion, whatever helps you make your point. Any questions asked about error must be addressed. You can either discuss the error quantitatively (using numbers) or qualitatively.

Discussion: This is where you should answer the questions posed by your lab manual. Discuss what your data tells you. Does your data make sense with what you know about physics and astronomy? If not, why? Again, if you make any calculations, write down and describe the formulas used.

Conclusion: Briefly summarize what was learned in the lab. Did you actually achieve the goals of the lab? This only needs to be a couple of sentences.