Release Notes 4/16/24

Hi there,

Here's a list of the new and revised activities, new features and bug fixes we are releasing today.

New and Revised Activities

We have MANY updated and revised activities in our library. Whether you are preparing for the AP Exam or preparing your students to finish the course, our library is full of refreshed and updated activities in all content areas. Here is a highlight of one activity from each content area!

• (Biology) Biomes and Climate Students explore factors controlling the distribution of terrestrial biomes. In this mostly auto-graded activity, students explain the role of incoming sunlight on temperature fluctuation and the role of water as a temperature regulator. By the end of the activity students will be able to describe the relationship between albedo, the amount of energy reflected and absorbed, and temperature, and relate specific human impacts (deforestation, urbanization) on terresterial biomes.

• (Chemistry) Heat of Solution: Explaining the process of dissolving We have two versions of this activity: one for on-level chemistry and one for advanced courses. Both activities are 100% auto-graded and require students to collect and analyze data abut energy transfer during dissolution to build a particle representation and create a potential energy diagram. The advanced version includes sections for students to discover a pattern that connects the number of moles of a substance dissolved and the amount of energy released or absorbed

• (Earth/Environmental) Math Practice for AP Environmental Science: Unit 9 Students use relevant math practices including dimensional analysis to solve problems related to Unit 9, specifically analyzing scenarios about the environment related to air pollution.

• (Physics) Rotational Collision: Slab Dropped on Disk. If you're teaching about angular momentum, then this activity is great for you! Highly scaffolded and 100% auto-graded, this activity requires students to apply conservation of angular momentum to determine the rotational inertia of a non-uniform object.

New Features

• Indicate randomized values in rich text in teacher previews. We're working to make it easier to understand when activities contain randomization. Now, when number within a question is set by a random variable, the number will be highlighted with a shuffle icon, and you can hover over the variable to get more information.

• New options for drag and drop conditions: it's now possible to make a condition that matches any choice or no choice at all.
• Clicking on links and vocabulary tool tips in the editor is now more intuitive: you can click anywhere on the link to edit.
• Better error messages about validation errors in the activity editor. Now when you have a validation error when editing an activity, you'll get a warning message that will let you jump directly to that error.

• Styling changes to the activity preview: Learning objectives now appear with a teal background to make them more visible. We'll be making other improvements to the teacher and student views of activities soon.
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Bug Fixes

• enable translation on rich text content. You should now be able to translate any content in an activity with tools like the Google Translate Extension.

We're always looking for ways to make Pivot Interactives even better, and we love trying to solve the problems science teachers are facing. If you've got a problem, or an idea for a new feature, please feel free to share it in this chat.