Activity Overview
This lesson involves the motion of a particle along a straight, horizontal line.
Objectives
- Students will analyze the relationship between the motion of a particle along a straight line and the graph of the position function that is piecewise linear.
- Students will analyze the relationship between the graph of the position function and the graph of the velocity function.
- Students will analyze the relationship between the graph of the velocity function and the cumulative distance traveled by the particle.
Vocabulary
- position
- velocity
- magnitude
- cumulative distance
- particle motion
About the Lesson
This lesson involves the motion of a particle along a straight, horizontal line.
As a result, students will:
- Analyze the graph of a particle's position function based on numerical information about its position, velocity, and cumulative distance traveled.
- Analyze the motion of the particle based on the graph of its velocity function, and determine the velocity of the particle by finding the slope of the position function.
- Compute the area of rectangles to discover how the graph of the velocity function is related the cumulative distance the particle travels.