Students are expected to know the motion quantities of position, velocity and acceleration and how they are related. They should have studied linear motion for the cases of constant velocity and constant acceleration. For both cases, they should be comfortable with graphs of position versus time, velocity versus time and acceleration versus time. The details of the motion of the free fall of any object at a constant acceleration rate of 9.8 m/s2 near the surface of the earth (neglecting air resistance) should be a familiar situation. Students should be familiar with the SI units for the motion quantities and be able to make conversions between SI units and units in other systems, given the appropriate conversion factors.
The students should be able to state Newton's First Law of Motion and give examples to illustrate the law. They should be able to explain the concept of the inertia of an object and its connection to the First Law of Motion and to the mass of the object. The difference between the vectors and scalars should be familiar.
A teacher using this module should have familiarity with fluid flow and drag forces. Knowledge of laminar and turbulent flow and the drag coefficient and its relation to Reynolds' number is important. A knowledge of differential equations is not required, but a familiarity with the concepts involved with computational integrative techniques is useful. The modeling tool STELLA is used in this module and teachers should be familiar with its basic use, especially the function of stocks, flows, connectors and converters. Use of the interface mode and the creation of slider controls, graphs and tables are necessary.
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Last updated 18 July 2002