How physics impacted me

Some principles of physics that are involved in this signature assignment were critical thinking about equations that are used in this field and how to solve them. Researching a certain topic so you can understand it better by using the resources you have in front of you. Learning about the laws of physics so you can properly define them so anyone can understand them. These key principles were very helpful because you needed to think outside the box and even collaborate with other people to get a right answer to the question in front of you. I talked to my dad who is an earth science major and he was able to explain parts of the equation better then I could find online and so when I ended up doing an internet search I was able to understand them better because of the way my dad explained it to me. Having to research all the stars was helpful because you needed to be able to use light years to show how far a certain star was and then having to do backwards math to figure out when the light left the star so that we are seeing it today. By having to study on the laws of physics you get a better understanding of what physics is about and what laws there are that can’t be broken and must be obeyed.
    Having to do this signature assignment gave me a better understanding of physics and what it entails. It made me want to learn more about what I researched, especially the stars. I’ve always loved the stars but having to learn about a certain constellation was fascinating and made me want to learn about others. I also didn’t think about having to analyze a certain equation but having to do it and see it from different angles in this was really interesting and gave me a great topic to propose to other people who are in the science field so I had something to talk to them about and gain some more insight to the equation. I always thought of stars and their constellation as something that had every star in it at the same distance from earth but having to learn how far away in light years each star I chose is it gave me a better understanding of distance and constellations in the galaxy. I enjoyed learning more in depth about a couple of the laws of physics and it made me want to learn more even if it wasn’t connected to this assignment. I really enjoyed how much this made me broaden my mind.
    The most challenging part of this assignment was the equation. All the other parts took me a couple hours to research and compile what I was going to write but the equation took me a couple days because I was struggling to understand what the questions were asking and I had a hard time finding the information which is when I started to propose certain questions to people in the science field that I know personally and between them talking to me about it and being able to bounce my ideas off of them it gave me a better understanding of what the questions were really asking for. Even though this was the hardest part for me it was nice to be able to stretch my critically thinking skills and see how well I could find the information for this problem and compile it to make sense on paper instead of just in my head. By working with others that I knew helped me in ways that it gave me different people’s perspectives on the same thing and then researching it gave me a rounded idea of what I was going to say and how to write it so it made sense to me and on the paper.
    I think this assignment shows great performance toward the learning outcomes set by SLCC’s college-wide learning outcomes. I don’t enjoy doing this and having to post them on my eportfolio but I understand why we must do them. By having to do this and post them it gives us a better understanding of having to do things that other people can see. It can give us a sense of achievement and make us want to do better work because other people can see our work and instead of just wanting to give a decent effort on it we work harder to make it look better for our peers. This particular signature assignment connects with what I have learned in my english classes because those classes give the basics of how to write a paper in an appropriate way and so by taking that other gen ed course it assists in making better work in other classes because we now know how to use information from past or current classes in conjunction with future classes. Also having the basic knowledge of biology helped because in biology 1010 we touched on some parts of physics so some of the information wasn’t completely new and I was able to better understand it because it had already been introduced to me in past classes. The process I took to complete this assignment was to take a block of time and focus on some part of the assignment that intrigued me the most so then I could complete that with confidence and then move on to a part I didn’t want to really want to do but only do a small amount then back to a part I wanted to do and so on and so forth. By going back and forth on what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do it broke up the part I didn’t want to do so it made the assignment easier to complete with work that I feel proud of.
    The impact that this assignment had on my understanding of the world was minimal because I have always questioned everything and wanted to know more about everything so having to take this class was just satisfying my curiosity for the world and why everything works the way it does. The most that this changed the way I thought was by researching the laws and which one I wanted to do more research on and when I chose the law I did it was because it made the most sense to me. Something in motion wants to stay in motion and something in rest wants to stay at rest. I thought that this made the most sense and I wanted to know more real world ways in which it happened. This assignment didn’t really challenge any of my assumptions though because I don’t make any unless I have the knowledge to back them up. I think that this shows how much growth I have had in this class because I didn’t even think about some of the things that we have covered in class already. For instance, I never thought of boiling water as a cooling process but once the knowledge is in front of me with the reasoning as to why then it makes perfect sense why it’s cooling. This class has made me want to question more and think more deeply into why things work the way they do.