Projects

Sun Project: this project has two parts.  First observe the sun at its setting on the western horizon.  Use a gnomon (a stick standing straight up) to cast a shadow on some surface at the time of the setting sun (the sun will set later and later each day through this quarter).  You will notice that the shadow from day to day will move from north to south as the sun moves from south to north.  Measure the distances between the settings and provide such analytical comments as you are able.   Second, note the position of a shadow point case by the sun against some surface at exactly the same clock time from day to day.  It may be convenient to do this on the north wall of an interior room in the later afternoon when the sun is shining in from the southwest.  Use a fixed point on the window as your gnomon.  Measure the curve described by the shadow point through your weeks of measurements and provide such analytical comments as you are able.

Moon Project: Build a diopter, a stick which will pivot on another stick with a protractor to indicate the angle of tilt.  Use this fixed upon the meridian to observe the position of the moon in the course of a sunodic month.  Note that this project will require you to view the moon an any hour of the day or night depending on where it is in its orbit.  The moon rises roughly an hour later every day.

Circumference of the Earth Project: with a partner or small group, determine the circumference of the earth by the method used by Eratosthenes.  At noon on the same sunny day measure the angle of the sun above the horizon at two points, one directly north of the other by several hundred miles.  You must know the distance between the points as the crow flies.  Using the ratio between the angle and the distance, determine the circumference of the entire circle around the earth.  You must be very thoughtful about the apparatus you will use to measure the angle of the sun, since inaccuracies will lead to very large errors in the circumference.  You must describe your apparatus and provide all the calculations.

History of an Illness Project:  Read Epidemics from the Hippocratic Corpus (http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/epidemics.html;  note especially the individual cases at the end of book 1 and throughout book 2) sufficiently to get a sense of the style of a medical history.  Then describe the history of an illness of yourself or some one else who is illness.  The illness can be chronic, but preferably not.  You may write a history of your own illness, but preferably someone else.  The illness and the observations must be conducted during this quarter.  A nasty cold would be a good subject.