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Just a Minute
This week, we will see how good your sense of
time is. You will need:
Stand or sit in where you cannot see any
clocks. With all the time settings on VCRs, microwave ovens, etc., this may be
more difficult than you would think. Have your friend hold the watch so that
you can't see the time. When you are ready, ask your friend to say "Go.' At
that point, you want to try to estimate when ten seconds have passed. Then,
say "Stop " and see how accurate you are.
How well did you do? More important, how did
you estimate the time? Did you count the seconds? If you count "one - one
thousand, two - one thousand, three - one thousand," etc., you can be pretty
accurate. Try the experiment five times while you are counting seconds, keeping
track of how accurate you are. Why five times? With a science experiment, it
is always important to repeat the experiment several times. Your first guess
may just have been luck, but if you get it fairly accurate several times in a
row, you have more evidence of your accuracy.
Now, try it again, this time without
counting. Don't do anything to try to measure the seconds. Instead, just try
to wait the correct amount of time. Again, repeat the experiment at least 5
times. How did you do this time?
Your brain is very good at keeping track of
time, but most people never develop the skill. After you get pretty good at
estimating 10 seconds, try it experiment again using 30 seconds. Counting the
seconds, it is still pretty easy to make an accurate estimate, but without
counting, you may find this one much more difficult. If you really feel up to
a challenge, try it again with a full minute.
This simple demonstration could easily be
developed into some very interesting science fair projects. It would be
interesting to test a wide variety of people, to see whether one group
(students, video game players, office workers, etc.) had a better time sense
than others. It would seem that people who spend a lot of time focused on time
(Only 5 minutes till the end of class!) would do better. It would also be fun
to see how easily this skill can be learned, by charting the progress of several
volunteers as they practice. If you are very creative, you could probably even
come up with a way to test your dog's time sense, to compare that with yours.
Well, my time sense tells me that it is time to
send this and then board my flight to New Zealand. I will try to post some
photos for you this week. (My time sense was wrong. I ran out of time,
trying to get the phone to connect with the computer, so this is being sent from
New Zealand.)
Have a wonder filled week.
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