In this lesson, students will use a simulation to explore elastic collisions and Newton’s second and third laws.

• Students will explore how the mass and initial velocity of objects affect the outcome of an elastic collision.
• Students will apply Newton’s second and third laws to a collision between two cars.

• speed
• velocity
• force
• acceleration
• mass
• collision
• action-reaction forces

In this lesson, students will use a simulation to explore elastic collisions and Newton’s second and third laws.

 As a result, students will:

• Manipulate the initial mass and velocity of objects and observe the final velocity of objects after a collision.
• Calculate the acceleration and force on objects during a collision.
• Verify Newton’s third law from data collected during the simulation.

This activity was created using Lua. Learn more about Lua in TI-Nspire here.