Momentum - Directions

 

How it Works:

Using the Momentum Concept Builder is quite simple. There are three different activities, each with a different emphasis. In each activity you will be presented with a question that you will have to answer. In the first activity - What's Happening With Momentum - you will be presented with a description of an object's motion and you will have to identify whether the momenum of the described object is increasing, decereasing, or remaining constant. You will tap on one of the three answer buttons. Once you have selected and tapped on an answer, a Check Answer button appears. Once you are satisfied with your answer, tap on the Check Answer button. Your answer will be evaluated and your Progress Report will be updated. 

In the second activity - Momentum Ranking Tasks - you will be provided with a graphic showing the mass and velocity of three objects. You will have to rank the momentum value of the three objects. Your ranking is accomplished by tapping on each of three fields to indicate which object (A, B, or C) has the greatest, middlest, or smallest momentum value. Once you have ranked each of the three objects, a Check Answer button will appear. Once you are satisfied with your answer, tap on the Check Answer button. Your answer will be evaluated and your Progress Report will be updated. 

In the third activity - Getting Direction on Momentum - you will be provided a description of an object's motion and asked to identify the direction of the momentum vector. You can answer the question by tapping on one of the three buttons. Once you have selected and tapped on an answer, a Check Answer button appears. Once you are satisfied with your answer, tap on the Check Answer button. Your answer will be evaluated and your Progress Report will be updated. 

Your goal is to earn "Stars" and to complete one or more activities. Stars are earned when you demonstrate success with a particular question. Once you show success on all the graphs at a particular difficulty level, you will earn the reward for that level.

Earning Stars

There are three activities in this Concept Builder. When you start up any of these activities, the number of questions for that activity are shown in the Progress Report area of the Concept Builder. You will notice that there is either a Yellow or a Red background for each question number. When starting up an activity, the background color is Yellow. Answering a "Yellow" question correctly earns you a star for that question number. However, answering it incorrectly turns the background color to Red. A question number with a Red background must be correctly answered twice (without a miss) in order to earn a star. 

 

Getting Help

You will notice that there is a Help Me button underneath the Progress Report. You should learn to use this feature of the program. It's how you can turn an exercise in answering questions into an exercise in learning. Tapping on the Help Me button will open a page with help that is specific to each question. Of course, the Help pages are only helpful if you read them. So take the time to read them. Each Help page contains four sections: a discussion of the The Basic Idea, a display of the Question that you are trying to answer, a section titled "How to Think About This Situation", and a set of links to resources in our Tutorial section. You should pay attention to the section titled How to Think About This Situation. You will find what you need to know in the two or three paragraphs of this section. You will also become a better Physics student for doing that. That is, after all, the goal of such an activity as Momentum.
 
 

Thanks for being patient with the Directions. Happy learning!