Columbine: Golden Quote #2

A Columbine killer pointed his gun at Cassie Bernall and asked her the life-or-death question: 

"Do you believe in God?"

She paused. The gun was still there.  "Yes, I believe in God," she said.

That was the last thing this 17-year-old Christian would ever say.

                 A short while after the massacre at Columbine, Cassie's parents appeared on Oprah to discuss their daughter's unbelievable courage.  At one point, Oprah poised the question, "Do you wish she has said 'No'?"  The mother had mixed feelings.  There had been an account by another girl at the school who had begged a shooter for her life and he ended up letting her live.  So on one hand, Cassie's mother wishes she had begged, for the chance that she too but might have been spared.  But on the other hand, Mrs. Bernall admits that there is probably "no more honorable way to die" than to profess your faith in God.  I come from a Christian family so I was curious to ask my mom what she would have wanted me to do if I were in Cassie's situation.  She told me she would have wanted me to do what Cassie did, profess my faith in God, rather than deny Him for the chance at not being shot.  I told her that wasn't an answer most mothers would give but she told me, "I would see you again in Heaven."

                 Now lets look at the possibility if Cassie had answered the question differently.  Cassie could have ignored the question altogether, and begged for her life.  My guess is the shooter would continue to press her for an answer, and if she didn't give one, he would shoot her.  I am guessing that the killer who had questioned Cassie was Eric.  My reasoning for this is that Dylan wrote about God a lot in his journal, and constantly restated that he did believe in God.  However, as time went on and his social-outcast life kept turning for the worst, he got angrier and angrier at God, who he thought was being completely unfair to him.  So if he had asked Cassie the question, I don't think he would have shot her for answering "yes," because he believed in God too.  So it must have been Eric.  Now lets imagine if Cassie had answered "no" to the question.  The shooter might have been pleased with this answer and let her live.  If he had let her live, Cassie would live with regret for the rest of her life that she had denied her Lord and might even wish she had said yes.  There is also the good possibility that even if Cassie had said "no," the shooter still would have killed her.  Cassie believed in a literal Heaven, so it probably ran through her head at that moment that if she said no, and the killer still shot her, God might punish her by not sending her to Heaven.  So if we were somehow able to communicate with Cassie now, I'm sure she would not regret answering "yes" to the killer's fatal question.

                If we were to agree on the idea that Cassie's killer was in fact Eric, not Dylan, then we need to ask the question of why he didn't believe in God?  Eric's family used to belong to a Evangelical church, but they weren't very involved and ceased their attendance about five years before the massacre.  So Eric had at least somewhat grown up around the idea of an existing god.  But another phenomenon to look at is the fact that Eric saw himself as superior to pretty much everybody around him.  He bragged about this on his online Blog site and his personal journal.  He wondered why everybody around him was so stupid, and he loved the idea of natural selection.  So there is a good chance that Eric didn't believe in God simply because he couldn't accept the fact that there was somebody superior to himself. Maybe he wanted Cassie to say she didn't believe in God because he wanted her to praise him or something.  Maybe that's what he did to the girl who had to beg for her life (this is assuming it was also Eric dealing with that girl).

              All in all, even if you aren't a Christian, we can all agree that Cassie had an honorable death because she stood up for what she believed in.  No matter what it may be that you put your complete faith in, you should stand up for it, even in the most extraordinary circumstances.

Waves on a String Lab

Directions: Go to the website: http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/physics

1. Open Waves on a String, investigate wave behavior using the simulation for a few minutes.  As you look at the waves’ behavior, talk about some reasons the waves might act the way they do.

2. Write a list of characteristics that you will use in this activity to describe the waves. Describe each characteristic in words that any person could understand. Leave some writing space for characteristics that you might think of later during the activity.

Equilibrium: Resting/balanced position of the string
Amplitude:the maximum distance that one point of the string gets away from the equilibrium (up and down)
Oscillation: Vibration around an equilibrium
Crest: highest point of the wave
Trough: lowest point of the wave
Wavelength: The distance from crest to crest (see above)
Frequency:The number of cycles the wave completes in a certain amount of time
Medium: the matter that the wave travels through
Wavespeed: The velocity of the wave on the medium
Pulse: a single disturbance
Periodic: acontinuous periodic disturbance

Tension: pulling force exerted by a string on another object.

Damping: restraining of vibratory motion (shock absorbers and carpet pads)

3. With the Oscillate button on and with No End checked, investigate waves more carefully using the Amplitude slider. Write answers to the following after your group has talked about each and agreed.

a) Define Amplitude in everyday language.

Amplitude: the maximum distance (height) that the string gets away from the equilibrium (the dotted line on the simulation.

b) Explain how the wave behaves as the Amplitude changes using the characteristics you described in #2

At zero amplitude, the string is at equilibrium, or basically flat. As the amplitude increases, the crest gets higher and the trough gets lower. The crest and trough will always be the same distance from equilibrium. The wavelength stays the same no matter the amplitude. This wave is also periodic, not a pulse. The wavespeed is also the same no matter what the amplitude may be.

c) If you would like, you can use a slinky on the floor for some investigations and explain how you could change the Amplitude of a wave.

Using a slinky, you can change the amplitude by just pushing the end of the slinky farther away or less farther away than just 15 inches. This will give you a larger or smaller amplitude for your slinky wave. 

4. Repeat step number 3, for Frequency, Tension and Damping.

a) Define Frequency in everyday language.

The number of cycles that the wave completes in a certain amount of time.  For this simulation, it is the speed of the pump.

b) Explain how the wave behaves as the Frequency changes using the characteristics you described in #2

When you increase the frequency, the amplitude is no affected. The wavelength also gets smaller when the frequency is increased.

c) If you would like, you can use a slinky on the floor for some investigations and explain how you could change the Frequency of a wave.

Using a slinky, you can increase the frequency by varying the speed at which you create the wave.

a) Define Tension in everyday language.

Pulling force exerted by a string on another object.

 b) Explain how the wave behaves as the Tension changes using the characteristics you described in #2

When you have high tension, the balls on the string are all attached.  However, even when you lower the tension just a little bit, the balls are no longer touching and the amplitude becomes very hard to determine.  With low tension, the wavelength doesn't change.

c) If you would like, you can use a slinky on the floor for some investigations and explain how you could change the Tension of a wave.

I don't think you can change the tension of a slinky because it is a solid figure where you can't change the tension of the metal. 

a) Define Damping in everyday language.

The restraining of vibratory motion (like shock absorbers and carpet pads)

 b) Explain how the wave behaves as the Damping changes using the characteristics you described in #2

With no damping, the wave will never end. The amplitude and wavespeed will always stay the same. But when you increase the damping, the wave dies quickly. At full damping, the wave only completes one cycle.

c) If you would like, you can use a slinky on the floor for some investigations and explain how you could change the Damping of a wave.

You cannot change the damping of a slinky because the damping of a slinky is constant. If there was no damping, the slinky would make waves forever.

5. Set Amplitude on high, Frequency, Damping and Tension on low. Also, have on Oscillate, Timer and No End. Use the Pause button to freeze the wave.

a) Place a blank piece of paper on your monitor and trace the wave and the wave generator. Mark the green balls. This is a vertical position- horizontal position graph, label your axes.

b) Quickly press Play, and then Pause again. Use the same piece of paper, put it on the monitor and make sure to get the generator in the same spot. Trace the new wave.

c) Write about the differences and similarities in the characteristics. You may have to do some more tests by pressing Play, then Pause and tracing to test your ideas.

The main difference is that for the first graph, the line started in the middle, where in the second it started at the crest of the wave generator.  The graphs are pretty similar besides the fact that the dots are in different spots. They are very similar, and both of the graphs both get smaller towards the end together.

d) Try some other settings and talk about why I recommended the settings that I did.

 With a lower amplitude, it would've been harder to trace the graph.With a higher frequency, you almost can't tell the pattern of the graph.

6. Set Amplitude on high, Frequency, Damping and Tension on low. Also, have on Oscillate, Timer and No End. Use the Pause button to freeze the wave.  

a) Measure the vertical location of a green ball with a ruler.

B) Record the vertical position and time.

b) Quickly press Play, then Pause repeatedly to make a data table the vertical position of the green ball versus time.

c) Make a graph of vertical position versus time.

d) Write about the differences and similarities between vertical position- horizontal position graphs and vertical position-time graphs.
The difference is that the vertical position-time graph looks much more structured than the first one.  Yo u can more easily see the pattern of the vertical position-time graph. The similarities are that on both graphs, the lines are going down and up, all while moving to the east.

7. Investigate how waves behave when the string end is Fixed and Loose with Manual settings. Discuss the behavior with your partners. Test your ideas and the write a summary.

I feel like when the string end is fixed, the damping is a little harsh and the wave doesn't come to a natural end. If it weren't fixed, the last green ball would move up and down a bit. When the string is loose, the wave ends more naturally. When the frequency is 100, it doesn't change the fixed end but the loose end moves much more quickly. With the loose end, a higher amplitude means a higher amplitude on the ending pole too.

Post to your blog the results of this investigation. You must include all sections that involve the verbs WRITE, RECORD and MAKE.

Columbine: Golden Quote #1

[The parents] talked to a lawyer that night. He related a sobering thought. "Dylan isn't here anymore for people to hate," he said. "So people are going to hate you."

            Just imagine.  Imagine being at your office going through your daily work routine, and getting a phone call telling you that there has been a massive school shooting at your child's high school.  Immediately, you're going to do two things.  One, you'll worry to death about your child.  Are they ok?  Are they still in the school?  Is the shooter still out there?  Will my kid be emotionally ok?  Secondly, you're going to drive to the school to see if you can muster up what exactly happened.  On April 20th, 1999 that is story of what thousands of parents in Littleton, Colorado went through that morning.  But the story was a bit different for two pairs of parents.  Mr. and Mrs. Harris and Mr. and Mrs. Klebold both received phone calls from the school or friends about the school shooting.  Their world was flipped upside down however, when they started being notified that their sons may be the ones performing the massacre.  Mr. Klebold was at home that morning when his son Eric's friend, Nate Dykeman, called up and asked whether or not Dylan's trenchcoat was in his closet.  Nate had heard several reports that the shooters were wearing trench coats.  After Mr. Klebold looked in his son's closet, he came back to the receiver and barely muttered, "Oh my God.  It's not here."  Mr. Klebold did the correct thing and called 911 to tell them his son might be involved with the murder.  

           Is this what you would have done?  It's very hard to imagine yourself in this situation, but it's possible that you aren't all that different from the Klebolds yourself.  Although both parents worked, they had fairly good relationships with their son and could never in a million years see something like this coming.  Many parents might react to differently to the situation Mr. Klebold was put in.  Some might deny it completely and say it's just a coincidence the trench coat is gone.  Others might panic and do absolutely nothing and sit in complete fear.  More radical ones might even flee from their home in attempt to hide from authority.  If it were me in that situation, I hope I'd call the police like Mr. K did.  

          Being only 100 pages into the book, I don't yet know what happened to the shooters' parents after the slaughtering.  If I were to guess, they probably moved very far away, perhaps even to another country, in order to try to start a new life where they aren't labeled as, "The parents of the murderers."  People are naturally going to blame the parents for raising their kids incorrectly, but there are thousands and thousands of parents who raise their kids either the same or worse, and their kids don't grow up to be mass murderers.  I don't know if our society will ever truly get a grasp of why these events occur.  If you think of the recent Sandy Hook shooting, the shooter clearly had some mental struggles, but that still doesn't give a concrete answer as to why he would retaliate his struggles with his mother onto small children.  I pray that someday these answers become more clear so we can learn how to prevent such drastic events from occurring.