Personal Assistant for Learning
Mechanics laws
| These PAL tutorials Introduce students to the basic mechanics laws. The order of presentation aims to show how these laws might be discovered by considering progressively more complex cases (i.e., first a single non-interacting object, then two interacting objects, and finally any number of such objects). This order also helps to specify clear definitions of basic concepts such as mass, and force. Students are given systematic practice in properly interpreting each of Newton's mechanics laws (dealing with motion relative to inertial frames, the relation beween mutual-forces, and the motion law ma = Ftot.) They are also explicitly taught some some qualitative reasoning skills. |
Instructions: Click on the underlined title of the tutorial that you wish to try. (The tutorials are listed in the recommended order.)
| Single non-interacting object: The inertia law |
| 1. Guided practice |
| 2.
Independent performance |
| Two interacting objects: Mutual forces |
| 3. Guided practice |
| 4.
Independent performance |
| Several interacting objects: Newton's motion law |
| 5. Guided practice |
| 6.
Independent performance |
| Qualitative application of mechanics laws |
| 7. Guided practice |
| 8. Independent performance |
