Melbourne High

In every IB class, students had to write or do an internal assessment. In physics, this was a paper on any physics topic of the student’s choosing. Seniors Samuel Patarroyo and Arianna Johnson were two students in Mr. David Proctor’s 7th period physics class that had been working on their IAs for the last couple months. Every Friday, the students would have that class period to work on a certain part of their IA and ask Mr. Proctor questions. 

Patarroyo had been doing his IA on aviation. “Specifically, how angle of attack affects lift on airfoil (wing),” said Patarroyo. Because this was a high level class and experiment, there were several difficulties that came along with the IA process. “The challenging part of my physics IA was collecting the data,” said Patarroyo. “I used a NASA foilsim which was challenging to manage because I had to change the control variables within the simulation to set the desired conditions I needed for data collection.” 

Johnson was doing her IA, looking at the relationship between amplitude decay rate and oscillation frequency. Similarly to Patarroyo, this came with difficulties.  Over two days, Johnson performed her experiment. She then had to turn those results into a 3000 word essay. “The most difficult part of writing the IA for me was the evaluation part because there is so much to improve on in my investigation for next time, but on the other hand I don’t want that section to drag on for too long, and my other sections to be not as detailed as that one,” said Johnson. Despite these difficulties, Johnson was able to ask Mr. Proctor for assistance. “Mr. Proctor helped me improve on my IA by giving me constructive feedback and the crucial corrections i needed in order to get my paper to the level it needs to be at for a good score,” said Johnson. 

Although the internal assessment was a one and done thing in the class, both Patarroyo and Johnson learned things in the Physics classroom that they could use outside of it. “I will use what I have learned when I am flying. Understanding the aerodynamics behind flight will help me become a better pilot. Now when I am flying I will take angle of attack more into consideration when making in flight decisions,” said Patarroyo. “One thing I learned in IB physics that I can use outside of that class is kinematics, as it explains how certain objects are able to move so fast,” said Johnson. 

Caption: A Helping Hand: IB Physics teacher David Proctor shows senior Samuel Patarroyo where he can make improvements on his IB Physics Internal Assessment. After the students finished their rough drafts, Mr. Proctor met with them one on one to give them feedback before they had to turn in their final paper. “Mr. Proctor gave me great suggestions. For example, he suggested me to include a null hypothesis. He also explained how to format the IA,” said Patarroyo. Photo by Kyra Chang