Teacher Notes for Vectors and Projectiles
Lesson Plans || Learning Outcomes and Activities || Teacher Notes || Labs
Unit Overview
Compared to other units, this unit is designed to be heavier on math and lighter with concepts. Students will use right-angle trigonometry in the early half of the unit. This includes the use of Pythagorean theorem and the sine, cosine, and tangent functions. Around Day 6 or 7 of the 13-day unit, the unit begins a transition towards projectile motion via the concept of a riverboat problem.
We would suggest three primary goals for these 13 days:
- To develop skill at adding multiple vectors to determine the resultant vector.
- To comprehend the application of kinematic principles and Newton's laws in describing and explaining the motion of a horizontally-launched and an angle-launched projectile.
- To combine projectile motion concepts with kinematic equations to predict how far (horizontally) a projectile will travel, how high it will travel (if launched at an angle), and how much time it will be in the air.
Vector Direction Conventions
Unlike our earlier units, this unit will have situations in which a force or a motion does not align with the conventional north-south-east-west axis. We will rely upon a counterclockwise from east convention to describe a vector's direction. While this is not the only convention, it is the most customary convention in science and engineering courses. At various locations on our site, we also describe a vector's direction as the angle that the vector makes with the nearest axes. So, we might describe a vector as having a CCW direction of 120° or we might describe it as having a direction of 30° West of North.
Launcher Labs
If you are fortunate enough to have a class set of projectile launchers with a reliable launch speed and a means of easily determining a launch angle, then you will be interested in our four launcher labs. We have included three of them in our Lesson Plan. There is a fourth titled Hit the Target - The Sequel. You will find details about this fourth lab in our Laboratory section.
Target Practice
Not all classroom's are fortunate enough to have a class set of projectile launchers with a reliable launch speed and a means of easily determining a launch angle. If you do have such a set of launchers, then we have a rather thorough collection of Launcher Labs in our Laboratory section. If such equipment is not available, we have three target practice simulations:
Other Resources
There are a few resources that we did not list in our Lesson Plans and Learning Outcomes and Activities that you may find to be very helpful or more in-style with your approach. These include:
- Science Reasoning Center: Ballistics
This activity doesn't mess around with the ignore air resistance clause. The activity compares the flight of a projectile with and without air resistance. It's a great "get real" data analysis opportunity.
- Concept Builder: Head-to-Tail Vector Addition
Students identify the Head-to-Tail vector addition diagram that is consistent with a given vector addition equation.
- Physics Interactives: Vector Addition
Drag a vector onto the canvas. Drag the arrowhead to change its direction. Repeat up to two more times and guess the direction of the resultant. Click/tap a button and the resultant is drawn. This simulation is accompanied by an excellent Student Activity Sheet and a Concept Checker.
- Physics Interactives: Trajectory
You don't have to say "ignore air resistance" any longer with our Trajectory program. Use our Trajectory modeling program to motivate student inquiry. Or turn it into a student project with our Student Exercise (accompanied by a scoring rubric).
It's "Honors" Physics
When you compare the Lesson Plans and the Learning Outcomes for our
on-level Physics course to our Honors Physics course, it may at first look the same. A deeper dive in just about every unit will reveal that the Physics is much the same but the difficulty level is significantly different. In this unit (and many of our others), we have picked different labs (and sometimes more labs). Our Think Sheets are often different even though they are named the same; for instance, in this unit, there have been four adjustments or additions. But perhaps the most noticeable difference is the collection of problems chosen for the CalcPad problem sets. You may get some push-back from students on these because many of the problems are very difficult. But it should serve as a reminder to them of the course they have enrolled in - HONORS Physics.
Teacher Presentation Pack
We will probably say this a lot. But we think it is worth saying. Our
Teacher Presentation Pack is a huge time-saver. For early-career and cross-over Physics teachers, it may also become a life saver. It includes a large collection of Slide Decks, animations, and graphics for use in your classroom. Once downloaded, you can modify and customize the Slide Decks as needed. The slides are highly organized and (mostly) graphical; they make great graphic organizers for any student, and especially for the struggling student.
Also Available ...
Physics teachers may find the following
for-sale tools to be useful supplements to our Lesson Plan and Pacing Guide section:
- Task Tracker Subscription (annual purchase)
A subscription allows teachers to set up classes, add students, customize online assignments, view student progress/scores, and export student scores. Task Tracker accounts allow your students to begin assignments in class or at school and to finish them at home. View our Seat and Cost Calculator for pricing details.
- The Solutions Guide
We publish a free curriculum with >200 ready-to-use Think Sheets for developing physics concepts. The Solutions Guide is a download containing the source documents, PDFs of source documents, and answers/solutions in MS Word and PDF format. An expanded license agreement is included with the purchase. (Cost: $25 download)
- Teacher Presentation Pack
This is a large collection of downloadable content packed with nearly 190 Microsoft PowerPoint slide decks, the corresponding Lesson Notes (as PDF and fully-modifiable MS Word format), about 170 animations (in .gif, .png, and .mp4 file formats), a countless number of ready-to-use images (including the original source documents that would allow for easy modification of those images), and a license that allows teachers to modify and use all the content with their classes on password-protected sites (such as course management systems). (Cost: $40 download)
- Question Bank
We distribute a Question Bank that includes more than 9300 questions neatly organized according to topic. The Question Bank is the perfect tool for busy teachers or new teachers. Even if you don't use the website with your classes, the Question Bank will assist you in quickly putting together quizzes, tests and other documents with high-quality questions that target student's conceptions of physics principles. And if you do use The Physics Classroom website, the Question Bank is the perfect complement to the materials found at the website. (Cost: $25 download)