Astronomy I: Put a Little Swing in Your Step! (The Scientific Method)
 

As you arrive at the Astronomy classroom for the first seminar of the year -- a lesson that students of all years are invited to participate in -- the sky is overcast. Clouds block all the stars, and the moon herself is almost entirely hidden on this October night. A shower of rain in the early morning seems to be in the cards, which inspires hope for those hoping to watch the lunar eclipse the next evening.

It is immediately clear that absolutely no stargazing can be done today, but that does not seem to bother Professor Sandhu, who is sitting on the edge of her desk, legs crossed at the ankle. Humming to herself, she waits for students to arrive.

The classroom is set up normally, with rows of tables and chairs making a semicircle facing the blackboard. What isn't normal is that all the desks, including Professor Sandhu's have on them a metre-rule, string, scissors, pendulum bobs and a stopwatch as well as a retort stand and its clamp on the floor. Take your seats, and quickly! Professor Sandhu is eager to start the lesson.

OOC: Hey, hi, hello, and welcome to our first OOC Astronomy lesson of the term. Remember that even though this is our first RPed lesson, that it is now October and students have already had a month of lessons with Professor Sandhu. Please read through the Classroom Rules before posting! Lesson will begin apppproximately 24 hours from the time of this post (1700 GMT+2)The lesson has begun! Please don't post your character arriving if you want to avoid IC consequences!

Lesson Progression:
Greetings + Question 1: What is important to keep in mind, as a scientist?
Answers to Question 1 + Mini Activity: Make a simple pendulum!
Response to Mini Activity + Question 2: What could possibly go wrong in an experiment?
Response to Question 2 + MAIN ACTIVITY: PENDULUM DODGEBALL with the bonus perk of getting 8" off their essay if they're one of the first ten to complete the activity.
CLOSING REMARKS. Thank you all for coming!

Avalon wrapped her fingers around her mug of tea, relishing the warmth radiating from the hot liquid on the chilly October evening. She always remembered to bring tea or coffee with her to astronomy lessons -- a caffeinated drink helped her to stay awake during their late-night classes. She was grateful that Professor Sandhu allowed food and beverages in the classroom. Most Hogwarts teachers prohibited them.

"Good evening, Professor," she said as she made her way around the semicircle and chose an aisle seat. Avalon was curious as to what they would be learning tonight -- it didn't seem like great stargazing weather. She glanced at the interesting array of objects on all the desks, pondering what they might be doing with them, as she waited for the lesson to begin.

Albertine was quickly realizing a few helpful things as the school year progressed further into the fall semester. For one, magical school was so much more fun than her classes at her old prep school. For two, magical school was so much more confusing. For three, Albertine would not be stopped regardless, which is where number four (caffeine!) came into play. Alba would be roasted over an open fire (or private letter, but still) for anything except Outstanding marks, no matter if the class in question extended well into her preferred sleeping hours. She had taken to having three packets of instant coffee dissolved in hot milk and plenty of sugar at dinner to combat any sleepiness during Astronomy, and it had worked fabulously so far - the young girl all but skipped up Hogwarts' tallest tower until she arrived to her evening lessons. Required materials and should-be-required snacks bounced around in her knapsack with the force of her enthusiasm.

The first year was pleased to see her teacher already there. She had taken a liking to the woman from the few lessons she'd already had the opportunity to attend. Whether the older professor cared for her at all would have to be learned in time. For now Alba just smiled and worked (with only small success) at keeping her hyperactivity on the down low. "Good evening, Professor Sandhu."

Glancing around the classroom, Alba decided to sit next to the girl who'd worn the cute shoes on their first day of term. "And good evening to you, Avalon." Alba remembered the name because she hadn't heard it in person until they met. After greeting the other girl she looked down at all the instruments on their desks. "Any Ravenclaw guesses on what all this equipment is for?"

Entering the Astronomy classroom on this late october evening hour Ellie held back a small yawn as she curiously looked around the desks at the set up and also noting the cloudy night sky. Shoot no stargazing tonight but hopefully it’d be fun anyway. Passing by the elder woman sitting on the edge of her desk Ellie greeted cheerily "Good evening Professor Sandhu!" She really liked her, because she was like the only professor that actually allowed to eat snacks in her class.

Debating where to sit Ellie gazed around until her eyes fell on Eji that she had heard muttering a curse to himself earlier. Smiling she took a new hold on her backpack as she headed over the snake boy and slumped down in the vacant seat next to him at the front of the class. "Hi Eji!" She pulled out her astro textbook and writing materials placing them on her desk before she pulled out a handful of cheeze crackers that she held out to Eji "Do you want a cheese cracker? They’re yummy or maybe a bertie bott?"

Simran straightened as the first student entered the room. Anahera Webb, a very pretty, very polite one. "Good evening, Miss Webb."

"As good as a day gets, without the sun," she said, pushing herself off the corner of the desk and standing. If students were coming in already, she would have to enter classroom-mode. "How was yours, dear?"



Ah, Miss Fairfield. Never a dull day with this one in the classroom. "Good evening, Miss Fairfield," Simran smiled, and shook her head. "Not a song I would expect you to recognise -- it's as old as I am."

Though if Eloise (or anyone) paid close enough, it did seem that she was singing "I'm gonna swing from the chandelieeeeeeeer" under her breath every so often, and the young Slytherin's disappointment at the apparatus gone entirely unheeded.



Ah, another Slytherin child. "Good evening, Master Kaiser." And he had his supplies out -- wonderful! She did so love it when her students were prepared for the lesson.



Simran smiled as another student walked through the door and took his seat. "Good evening, Master Anderson-Belfort."

"I promise the apparatus won't bite."



Simran watched with mild concern as the next student entered, looking worse for wear. If she had been a fifth year, she would chalk it up to overzealous OWL preparation, but that did not seem to be the case. Perhaps she just had a long day.

"Hello, Miss Bell." Oh goodness, that yawn. She sure hoped the child would not mistake her desk for a pillow.



Unfortunately for Gunnar, he would have absolutely no luck in witnessing a lunar eclipse tonight -- especially as it was only scheduled for tomorrow evening. But even if it had been tonight, the clouds were in the way of such a thing. Pesky little things.

"Good evening, Master McCarthy," she said, smiling to herself as he picked up the pendulum bob. Curiosity was good, always good.



Seeing first years with coffee always made herself feel a little guilty, but her timetable hadn't allowed a better timing for the seminar otherwise. Ignoring the clench of her stomach, she smiled at Miss Sinclair anyway, and returned her greeting. "And to you as well, Miss Sinclair."

At least first years had the earliest lesson slot on non-seminar days.



Easily the most difficult part of moving back to Hogwarts to teach was the knowledge that now she taught a core subject. Back at Oxford, everyone was in her Astronomy lesson because they wanted to be. Tragically, here it was the opposite.

Nevertheless, they were here to learn, and she was there to teach. "Hello, Miss Myles." At least this one was energetic.



"Good evening, Miss Radosevich," she greeted as the next girl entered. It was always lovely to see someone quite so energetic enterting her lesson -- the post-dinner lethargy got to her a little too often.

Her gaze lingered on the girl as she picked up conversation with her deskmate. She wouldn't stop it, of course, the class was not in session, but she did make a mental note to be sure they weren't disruptive when it was.



Watching young Master Dakest enter the classroom and look around with all the curiosity his mind could afford him made Simran's lips twitch upwards in a smile. "Good evening, Master Dakest."

He seemed to be enjoying himself despite the weather. Which made her feel slightly less gloomy too.



Hanna Newton was the next to arrive -- an OWL student. One with another lesson with her tomorrow evening as well. Simran made a mental note to grade the rest of the cohort's papers before the lesson so they'd be able to discuss them.

"Good evening, Miss Newton."

She did hate grading papers, though.



"Good evening to you too, Miss Malari," Simran smiled, smiling as she caught a whiff of coffee as the girl walked past her.

Ah, the NEWT-student life.



As the next student entered, Simran had to make a double take. It was almost difficult to recognise the boy without his blanket.

"Hello, Master Potter," she smiled, still somewhat dazed. "No blanket today?"



Ah, yet another! "Good evening, Miss Dantes," she said, giving the girl a nod in return.

And a curious one too! It always made Simran's heart sing when a student's interest was piqued.



Another student with a mug of coffee! Simran smiled and made her way around the desk, picking up her own mug and holding it out in a mock toast. "Hello, Miss Calrissian."

And as she did, the elder woman caught glance of her watch and gasped. Almost time to begin the lesson!



Simran had just put her mug down and headed towards the door when Eiji Rasting walked through. Not the most talkative, this one. Or perhaps it was different in his other lessons, or he required time to warm up to her. It had only been a month, after all. Either way, she gave him a nod back. "And a good evening to you as well, Master Rasting."

She would simply pretend not to have heard his displeasure at her lesson plan. Hmph.

And on that note, she shut the door behind him.



Or, well, she would have if the next student hadn't managed to slip past the door. "Just in time, Miss Smethwyck!" she said, finally shutting the door firmly behind the girl.

And, well, best to keep the conversation to a minimum. Simran had eyes on you, dear.

Now turning to the class, she cleared her throat to get their attention. Once she had it, or at least some semblance of it, she took her place in the centre of the semicircle of desks -- not quite at her own desk, but about a foot away from it.

"As you all know, Astronomy is a natural science. More specifically, it's a physical science." As opposed to a life science, like Biology, for example, or a social science. "It concerns celestial objects, space, and the physical universe as a whole. We learn not only about the hard science of the matter, but also how celestial events influence magic as a whole."

But of course, they knew that. Especially the first and sixth years, who had just completed the chapters An Introduction to Astronomy and A Re-Introduction to Astronomy respectively.

"We ask questions, even though we may not now be able to answer them, in the hope that someday, someone will. Or sometimes for the sake of asking them." The scientific world was still trying to prove and interpret Ramanujan's writings as well, and nobody was quite sure when it would be done. "So now I have a question for you, because you are all as much scientists as I am."

"What is important to keep in mind, as a scientist?" she asked, as a piece of chalk wrote on the board in a tidy cursive the same question. "What values and procedures does the scientific community hold particularly dear?

OOC Note: Hello everyone, and welcome again to the lesson! We've already begun, so please no longer post your character arriving or there will be IC consequences. You'll have approximately 24-36 hours to answer this question before the lesson progresses!

That was...incredibly relatable.

Smiling at the professor, Anahera leaned back in her seat a little. "I'd say the same, really." Her eyes briefly darted to some of the other students filing in before landing on Professor Sandhu again. "I'm not particularly fond of the rainy weather here." PLUS how cold it got in winter. That was also something she wasn't fond of. At all.

Other than that, she did quite like Scotland. It was beautiful.

She'd been looking around the classroom, watching as more and more students joined them. Yet hardly any of them had caught her attention. Anahera had sent a small smile in Kaiser's general direction but other than it was mostly people she didn't really interact with so far.

Which was why she found herself a little surprised when one of them decided to sit next to her.

Not that she minded. "Hello." She gave the boy a genuine smile and shifted a little to make sure he had enough room. "Max, right?" He was a few years younger than she was AND he wasn't a Gryffindor so she wasn't completely sure she'd got his name right. Hopefully, though.



....oh.

Maybe she'd been wrong in her assumption of this being a more hands-on kind of lesson. This seemed very theoretical. Not really something she cared for, to be honest. Hopefully they'd be doing something with the items on their desks soon after all.

"Reliability." Anahera replied after raising her hand. She might not have been particularly interested in this part of the lesson but she could speak from experience anyway. "It's important to have reliable results and that they aren't just something you observed one time. You have to make sure it wasn't just a coincidence."

Avalon glanced around the room as more of her classmates filed in for the lesson. Her eyes brightened when she saw a fellow first year, Alba. "Hi, Alba! It's good to see you," Avalon said with a smile. She was glad that there'd be another friendly face in this lesson. Seminar classes made her nervous - it was sometimes difficult to be surrounded by so many older students. Looking down at the equipment on their desks, Avalon shrugged. She pointed at the scissors and string. "Perhaps we're making crafts?" she said sarcastically.



Avalon's eyes wandered to the front of the classroom as the last student filed in and Professor Sandhu began the lesson. What was important to scientists? Avalon wasn't too familiar with science, other than what she had learned so far in Astronomy. But she assumed that herbology and potions could sort of be considered sciences as well. And some things that were important for those subjects were curiosity, open-mindedness, and perseverance, among others. She heard a few of those words being offered up by her classmates before she raised her own hand. "Objectivity is important. Science is very much fact-based, so you can't let your own judgment get in the way too often. Not to say that creativity or personal interpretation is never warranted, but it's important to be unbiased."

Professor Sandhu’s comment made Ellie glance down at her wrist watch and blush just a little. Thankfully she was just on time so why the tone that felt a bit stern though from the professor? She gave Eji another glance and put away the snacks before the lesson got underway.

Concentrating she considered what she knew about scientists, problem solvers and inventors since they worked hard sometimes even obsessively to find answers where others had failed. Raising her hand Ellie offered up. "I think a scientist needs to value critical thinking and not take the first answer they find to a question as the truth. A scientist should also be a keen observer of it’s surroundings and what they are studying and have courage to hold on to their beliefs and hypothesis even if they are laughed at by others."

Astronomy was one of Lili's favourite subjects. She probably would have considered it an occupation if her heart wasn't so set on Potions and Quidditch. But it still meant that she enjoyed the class. It was why there was a big smile on her face as she sat putting the date on her parchment. She had her colour coded system, so that it was easier for her to revise when she got started. But for now, she was going to enjoy the lesson, and colour code to her hearts desire. It was only the start of the year, so she didn't need to do too much studying yet.

She thought to herself for a little, thinking deeply about the question, and listening to others opinions before she put her hand up in the air. She smiled as she answered when it was her turn. "They need to act in a non-biased way. Results, and evidence can't be used, or good, if the person who completed it did so in a biased way"

Miss Fairfield seemed to live to prove her right -- there was never a dull moment with her in the lesson. She smiled to herself at the whisper the Slytherin girl made at the young man sat in front of her and pretended not to hear. As long as it wasn’t a disturbance, she could ignore a great deal.

As for the answer she gave, well, that elicited a sharp bark of laughter from Simran. The girl wasn’t wrong. “Indeed, Miss Fairfield. Scientists are so fond of humour that the strongest candidates for dark matter are acronymed “WIMPS” and “MACHOS” respectively.” Heh.

She liked this kid.



”Rain makes a great number of things gloomy, unless you particuarly enjoy running through it.” Simran sighed. “Unfortunately, my healer says that if I keep doing that, I’ll catch pneumonia again. Or break my hip.” Truly a tragedy, getting old.

Ah, Miss Webb brought up a very good point. “Very true, Miss Webb. Replicability is extremely important in experimenting -- it would not do to make a claim based on an experiment that nobody else could repeat. That is not science.”



It would be unfair to say that Simran disliked Gryffindors, considering that she was one herself, as was Miss Webb. However, she definitely did not like the attitude a lot of them brought to lessons. Especially considering this was a seminar class and such behaviour was in full view of younger, impressionable students.

“Something else scientists value, Miss Merriweather, is initiative.”

Just saying.



Ah, an answer from the other side of the room. Drawing closer to the girl speaking, she nodded encouragingly as she did. All very true statements, all very real problems the scientific community faced.

“Very true, Miss Mallari. It is also extremely important not to fudge data, the way some scientists -” she coughed something that sounded eerily like Albert Einstein “- do to support their own hypotheses.”



Simran nodded at the young Slytherin, and smiled. “Very right. Without curiosity, nothing would be discovered, because there would be no desire to discover it.”

“And if you yourself find yourself insatiably curious about something, it could take you very far.”




Simran rolled her eyes at the girl who pointed at her apparatus and suggested that they were making crafts. Crafts indeed. She was no Muggle Studies Professor. Though… crafting wasn’t all bad. Perhaps she’d make the first years craft a model solar system? Or model one of Jupiter’s moons? It wouldn’t be punishment, surely. She was not that petty. She absolutely was.

Oh, objectivity, and said so by two different students. Yes, she should try some of that herself. “Indeed. As it is important not to let your judgement of someone else’s person cloud the validity of their research.”



”Very true, Miss Smethwyck! Well done!” she said, nodding aggressively. “One must always repeat their work, to make sure their results were not caused by error or chance.”

As for the courage bit, well, she smiled. “Many people discovering new things are laughed at. It can take generations for a novel idea to be accepted, but that is correct. It is extremely important not to lose heart, just because your peers don’t see the value of your work.”



”Perseverance is crucial, Miss Newton, thank you!” Simran said, nodding once more. “Dealing with all these things, as well as rejections when asking for funding, as well as the public insisting that your work has no value -- these can all be very demoralising for scientists, and it is important that they not give in to the feelings of inadequacy.”

“After all, it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not failure, that is life.”



Ah, Miss Montague. Simran had always thought this girl had potential. Tragically, her heart was set on other courses. No matter, all good potioneers required a good grasp on their Astronomy, and she would do her level best to make sure that is what the girl had.

“Very good!” she exclaimed. “And especially if results were acquired using questionable means.”



Miss Myles truly was something else. Simran smiled, and then shrugs. “One could say that, yes. Personally, I believe science is more the process of finding out about the things out there, rather than the things themselves.”



“That is very true, Mr Dakest. Risks must be taken, but not unnecessary ones,” she said, fixing the boy with a careful look. “Madam Curie, for example, did some great research and won two Nobel prizes for it, but she also contracted cancer for not taking precautions against radioactivity. While she didn’t know the effects of this, we do now, and although any research involving such radioactive materials carries its own risk, it is also our job to keep the risks minimal.”

“You must stay alive and well if you are to contribute further, after all.”



”Very correct, Miss Walsh!” she nodded, turning towards the blackboard, now full of their answers. “Every variable is important, any small thing could change the outcome of your experiment.”

Now, returning to the centre of the room and her desk, she clapped her hands together in glee. It was time to reveal the true focus of the seminar lesson. “As you may have noticed, the topic of experiments was brought up several times. Scientists of all fields have one process that they all follow -- we call it the Scientific Method. It is a way to make guesses, and see if we are correct.”

“The process begins with a problem statement, from which a hypothesis is drawn. Every hypothesis must name two variables -- what is changed and what is observed. We call these the manipulated and responding variables. We also have variables that don't change -- the constant variables.”

“On your tables is the apparatus to create a simple pendulum. I will show you how to set it up, and how to take the measurements, and then you will do it yourselves with variables.” Now behind her desk, she pulled the retort stand and clamp onto the table.

“The clamp is attached to the retort stand with screws -- please don’t use the string to tie them together. It’s more work than it’s worth.” Could they all see her? No matter, she would go around the room to be sure they were setting up correctly later. “After the clamp is attatched, we will construct the pendulum. First tie the string to the pendulum bob. This is now your pendulum. Now tie it to the pivot -- that’s the clamp.”

Everyone following so far? Good. “Now, you displace slightly and release. One oscillation is complete when the pendulum returns to the starting position. I want you to time how long it takes the pendulum to complete ten oscillations. Now it’s your turn.”

“Once you’ve managed to get ten oscillations, you can use the metre rule or the extra string to change the length and see how that affects the period of the oscillations and tabulate your results. Raise your hand if you need help!”

She’d just be taking a little walk around the room otherwise, making sure everything was going okay.

OOC: Hi guys! We’ve come to the mini-activity! I know this was a LOT of text, but you don’t actually have to tabulate these results. Just say the students did! Please title your post if you need help from Simran.

You’ll have approximately 3 days to finish this activity before we move on to the next question, but I’ll be by in between. Have fun!

catch up.
 

Q for professor Sandhu near the end.
 

Simran had made it to the back of the classroom before people had finished setting up -- most seemed to be able to get through unassisted, including Mr Doley, despite his evident boredom with the lesson.

Truly, she felt a little bad for making such a good student out of his mind, but she sent him a thumbs up somewhere in between his stopwatch readings.



There was something rather calming about pendulums and their swinging, and Simran made a mental note to get herself a Newton's cradle for her office just so she could have something else to procrastinate grading papers with.

Thank goodness for Miss Smethwyck, though, for snapping her out of her pendulum-induced hypnosis before she got too carried away. Why an oscillation? Oh, well. She knew the answer for this, at least. "Many things swing. For example, if I were to slide your pendulum off the clamp and swing it at someone's head, that would be a pendulum swing."

"An oscillation, however, is a word for a specific type of swing,"she said, her right index finger now following the movement of a nearby pendulum. "It describes a periodic motion, where the restoring force acts in the opposite direction to the displacement of whatever it is you're measuring. We call it simple harmonic motion."

And then drawing nearer, she lowered her voice slightly. "If you want extra reading on the subject, feel free to stick around after class and I'll get you something."



Oh, quite a nicely set up apparatus was going on here. The Slytherin prefects seemed to be on a roll today. "Excellent setup, Miss Mallari."



But on the subject of well-set-up apparatus, this one was rather... not. Not that it was terribly set up, but there were so many knots that Simran almost had a headache trying to imagine disassembling it.

"Master Dakest, you do know that more knots increase friction, which can affect your results, yes?" Summoning a spare pendulum bob, she picked up the spool of string and cut a new length, something she approximated to a half metre even though it was about 58cm in reality.

"A double knot on the pendulum will do, if you tie it tight, it won't fall off." We following? "And a loop on the top is the most efficient considering you can just sliiiiiide it onto the clamp."

Like so.

Merry Christmas, Lucas Dakest, Professor Sandhu just set up your apparatus for you.



At the Gryffindor prefect's tone, something seemed to simmer in her veins. Was it her blood? How quickly it boiled these days without Amrita to nag at and Jasmine to coo over.

"And that will be 3 points from you for your lack thereof, Miss Merriweather," she said frostily. "And your blatant lack of respect."

She drew nearer, voice still low, but the patented disappointed brown parent look in her eye. "I can put up with and occasionally enjoy your sad attempts at wit in lessons with your peers, dear, but when the younger students are around, I expect you to be an example. If that seems too much to ask of you, I will be more than happy to bring it up with your head of house. Do I make myself clear?"

Hm?



Oh, Kaiser, dear, what ever were you doing? Simran made her way over to his desk and picked up his stopwatch, and then held it out to him. "Time ten oscillations, dear, and then adjust the length of the string."

"And don't forget to record your results!" Maybe someday all her students would listen when she gave instructions.



Well, truthfully, Professor Sandhu had planned a whole host of introductions to the night sky, but the weather had decided to one-up her and she wasn't really in the position to tell the weather to kindly buzz off.

At least Anahera seemed to be doing well, even if she looked liable to fall asleep in the next few minutes.



And with Miss Newton, as always, precise to a flaw. Simran nodded in approval at the girl's setup before moving back towards the front.

Clapping her hands twice to get their attention, because her throat was dry and she didn't quite want to scratch it further before she had some tea, she waited until eyes moved from pendulums to her person. Did she have the room yet? Wonderful.

"Now you've all become acquainted with the simple pendulum and learned the relationship between the manipulated variable -- the length of the string -- and the time taken for the pendulum to oscillate. Your conclusion would be that the shorter the string, the faster the oscillation -- or the higher the frequency."

The conclusion wrote itself out on the board, and the associated equation as well. "This experiment is not only important to illustrate the effects of simple harmonic motion, but is also the simplest way to derive the value of gravitational acceleration." SURPRISE! Bet they didn't think pendulums had anything to do with astronomy at all.

"Either way, we won't be deriving that right now," she said, looking out over the room. "As you were performing the experiment, I'm sure it was difficult to keep your results as accurate as possible, especially with so many moving parts."

"Now, can you all tell me what could have possibly gone wrong in this experiment? Or in any experiment, for that matter?"


OOC: Thanks for participating in the mini-activity, guys! Now we're on to Question 2. You'll have about 24 hours from the time of this post before we move on!

idk if this is right but um
 

Simran observed the young boy carefully, his silence a note she made and quickly stored in the back of her mind. It always worried her when students were silent in class, that they would not tell her when they didn't understand the subject matter. Master Anderson-Belfort, however, did seem to follow for now.

Hopefully, he'd acclimatize to her lessons soon and start voicing up.



Everyone makes mistakes, she told herself. even the gifted students. Especially the gifted students. Which was why Mr Dakest really shouldn't worry about his setup, or how it was wrong, but focus on how to fix it instead. Which she'd tell everyone collectively in just a minute.

"Very good, Master Dakest," she said, nodding in approval. "Friction does often fudge results, and there's often nothing we can do to remove it completely. And the setup of apparatus too, which is why designing experiments often take a lot of time to consider how the design could affect results."



Simran was not, in fact, looking for any specific answer at all, but for the general pattern the answers tended towards. She'd personally have suggested that things sometimes go flying and hit people in the face and then they go blind, but that was extreme, and she wasn't a student. Just an old woman prone to hyperbole.

"That is correct, instable equipment can lead to inaccurate results, but at least they'd be consistently inaccurate."



"Correct, Kaiser!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together in delight. "Environmental factors out of your control can affect your results. A gust of wind, for example, even if it's light. For light-sensitive experiments, doing the experiment at different times of day, or with varying degrees of cloud cover."

Now addressing everyone, she flicked her wand at the board, and all the previous answers on it were wiped clean. Then she turned back to them, just as the piece of chalk wrote "ERROR" in large letters on the board. "Everything you have all mentioned falls under one large category -- error. It can cloud the accuracy of your results or, in extreme cases, derail the entire experiment."

"There are two main types of error: Random Error and Systematic Error," she said, but as she turned, caught the piece of chalk throwing a tantrum and refusing to write. She sighed. "Very well, then."

Making her way to the blackboard, she picked up a different piece of chalk, now yellow, the chalk she used for equations and incantations to distinguish it from the regular white chalk the other notes used, and began to write. Desperate measures and all. "Random errors usually result from the experimenter's inability to take the same measurement in exactly the same way to get exact the same number."

"They are are statistical fluctuations (in either direction) in the measured data due to the precision limitations of the measurement device. Your metre rule can only take measurements in increments of one centimetre, for example. If you had a piece of string measuring 11.3cm, it would read as 11cm, likewise for a piece of string measuring 10.9cm. Sometimes it's not even just the device, and human error adds too! Like if you blink and barely miss exactly when an oscillation completes, or the reaction time between you observing a result and reading the stopwatch."

"Systematic errors, however, are inaccuracies that are consistently in the same direction, and usually persist throughout the entire experiment. For example, if your stopwatch doesn't reset to zero but is always 0.2s ahead or if your measuring tape were stretched out. However, because these affect all your readings, they don't usually affect your results." They could, though.

Oof, that was a lot of words. And a lot of writing. She had not missed this part of muggle teaching. Anyway, now for the fun part, with exactly no writing involved! "Now, if you all would disassemble your apparatus, pack your bags and head to the back of the classroom -- there are some boxes there for you to put the materials in."

Once everyone was done, and the apparatus put away, and students congregated at the back of the classroom, she stretched lightly and cracked her knuckles. This one would be a doozy. With a flick of her wand, the tables and chairs moved themselves to the sides of the classroom, stacked, and shrunk until they occupied only a tenth of the space they once did. A second flick of the wand sent the boxes of apparatus to her office, and a third brought in more boxes, and they moved to the cardinal directions of the room.

"I had wanted you to use the apparatus for this activity, but when I was doing a trial run, I realised that the retort stands are half the size of some first years." Not ideal to be running around with. "The box with you at the back of the room contains little bean bags. Please take one of each colour. There are orange, purple and brown." One for each other cardinal direction of the room, y'know? Why those colours? Well, they weren't house colours.

"Your job is to get from there to the other boxes and deposit your bean bags into the corresponding coloured box. However --" she flicked her wand at the ceiling, and previously camouflaged and hidden pendulum-like round pillows attached to strings dropped from the ceiling. "You have to get through the pendulums. If you get hit by said pendulums, you have to return to the starting position and begin again."

"You may and should use these pendulums to sabotage your classmates." They were only pillows after all, and there was very little serious injury that could stem from a pillow. "First ten to finish the course gets a 8-inch discount on your next essay."

"NOW GO GO GO GO GOOOOOOOOOO."

Oh how her inner Gryffindor loved chaos.

OOC NOTE: It's main activity time! You'll have approximately 3 days to do so!

Catch up....
 

Feel free to catch Archer's pushed pendulum!
 

Simran looked on in glee as the pendulums swung, some of their own free will, others pushed by students like Archer. It was a sight for sore eyes, a small bastion of proof that if the chaos of the universe was always increasing, that there was very little point stopping it entirely. After all, who were they to question the Great Big Universe? Or Multiverse, depending on whose theory they were going with.

However, all good things had to come to an end, and after the first ten students had deposited all three beanbags, the pillows came of their own accort to a magical stop. With a flick of Simran's wand, they retracted back into the ceiling and would remain there until she returned in the morning to transfigure them back into whatever they were before.

"Thank you all for partipating in our first seminar lesson," she said, once everyone seemed to notice that the activity was come to an end. "Your homework is on my desk."

"Please take the questions corresponding to your year -- for first to third years, you will be plotting the points on graph paper from the data you tabulated and drawing the line of best fit. Fourth and fifth years will do the same, along with drawing the line of worst fit and determining the uncertainty in the measurement. NEWT-students will do all the above, as well as derive the value of gravitational acceleration. Everything you need -- formulae and such -- are already in the question booklet. For a worked solution, you may check the Astronomy Noticeboard on Friday."

"If you have questions, I will be here for a few more minutes, but if it isn't pressing, please see me during my office hours."

"If someone would help Master Dakest up, it would be lovely." Was that it? She supposed so. "And you're dismissed. Goodnight, dears."

OOC: That was it! Our first lesson! Thank you all for coming and I hope you had fun! You may post leaving if you like, but I'll close the thread in approximately eight to ten hours.