Retired Physics Curriculum: 1 D Motion
The only specialized equipment used for these labs were motion detectors or photogates. We used Vernier probes, their LoggerPro software to control everything and the carts and tracks from Pasco. Our labs had 7 lab stations, and each station had its own computer to run the equipment.
AP Physics (calculus)
I started with the basic definitions of velocity and acceleration, then focused on graphs of motion, and then ended with the more complicated problems. With problem solving, I tried to stress looking at the positions and velocities as functions in time. I expected the kids to be able to do a simple derivative, but I avoided saying "integral," as they were only expected to be taking calculus concurrently and didn't officially know how to do them yet.
I don't really have many notes written up for this unit. These handouts are either problems that I would have started in class, so that I could walk around and answer questions, or labs.
Objectives, reading, homework and equations for the unit.
First day, first lab! Figure out where two toy cars will meet. Equipment: 2 constant velocity cars.
This lab is an introduction to the motion detectors and Logger Pro. We also define speed and velocity during the discussion. Equipment: constant velocity car and motion detectors.
Problems involving average speed, average velocity and velocity. Some simple graphs are included and derivatives are needed. Does not involve calculating or giving acceleration.
Initial problems involving (mostly) constant acceleration. Does not include gravity.
Lab modeled after Galileo's inclined plane experiments. This is the first time the students need to linearize their results. We also use this lab to motivate that gravity is a constant acceleration. Equipment: photogates, ball bearing, ramp.
The seven basic one dimensional motion graphs. If you are having a hard time interpreting or sketching motion graphs, then this may be helpful.
Interpreting a series of position graphs and then velocity graphs. No real calculations.
Creating velocity graphs from position graphs and vice versa. I reformatted the handout, but the answer key is the old formatting.
This is actually three quick little labs/activities. Determine the acceleration due to gravity on earth, estimate the acceleration due to gravity on the moon, and determine your reaction time. Equipment: photogates, picket fences, ruler.
Basic problems involving free fall. I often skipped assigning this, but probably should have.
Examining position, velocity and acceleration for an object when it changes direction.
Notes on choosing a coordinate system for problem solving. It's really focused on choosing an origin and the positive direction, which shows up in gravity problems and wheen to use +10 or -10 for the accceleration due to gravity. I made this last year, and actually handed it out at the start of 2 dimensional motion, but logically it makes more sense here.
Determine the acceleration of a raquetball when it bounces on the lab table. Equipment: photogates, raquetball.
These are labs we used to do.
We went outside, placed studeents with stopwatches 2 meters apart in a 20 meter long line. Then someone was timed walking by each student. For the speeding up, a few students pushed a car (with the engine off and in neutral.) Other versions of this lab involved students being pulled or pushed on skateboards.
This used the old ticker-tape style to record the position of a wind up toy car that sped up and slowed down. It took a long time to get a good run and good data.
Here are some old tests for some practice.
Physics (algebra)
Here are some of the handouts and notes from the algebra-based physics course. It always felt like a really long unit, so we broke it into two parts. The first half focused on defining velocity and acceleration and interpreting the graphs of motion. Analyzing graphs of position and velocity tends to be challenging for the kids, so we wanted to focus the first half of the unit on that. We didn't do any real word problems with acceleration and distances, covering that in the second part of the unit.
This is not the same as the AP lab (though it is the same flavor.) First teaching day of physics is a lab. A simple challenge lab in which the kids figure out how fast a toy car moves, then predict how long it will take to travel a certain distance. I tended to introduce this saying "You already know that speed is distance divided by time..."
After the lab, I really defined that they actually calculated the average speed, and then we did some word problems.
This is a little activity to introduce the kids to how to use the computers and motion detectors. It doesn't take that long.
And now we can introduce the difference between speed and velocity by using the motion detectors and looking at the motion of the toy cars they used on the first day.
Now some questions and problems looking at speed and velocity.
This is a little lab to introduce the idea of acceleration as the slope of the velocity. Speeding up works fine, but the difficult thing of the slowing down part of the lab is trying to catch just a small part of the overall motion. Honestly, it helps to show this one for real as a demo to make sure the kids are focusing on the right things.
to help build the idea of acceleration. Sometimes I didn't include the graph at the end.
Just some problems, as the name implies.
Again, what the name implies.
Now finally some overall problems including all parts.
The review sheet before the test.
Here is the second half of the unit. Here is where we introduced free fall and the kinematics equations for constant acceleration. This ends up being more of the classic physics word problem, but we did try to keep throwing graphs into the problems to keep the kids interpreting graphs.
Just doing a generic derivation of average speed for a constant acceleration amounted to just magic in this class, so I made this to at least try and guide the kids into seeing the relationship.
These were meant to be done using the new average velocity = the average of the initial and final velocity during a constant acceleration.
Then we derived the standard distance (or position) as a function of accleration and initial velocity equation, and have the kids practice with that.
Some problems done with explanation.
page last updated 7/6/23 by david mcclung, copyright 2023, all rights reserved.