PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AP ® Physics 1 Rotational Motion CURRICULUM MODULE For the redesigned course launching fall 2014 The College Board New York, NY Revised spring 2015 About the College Board The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the College Board was created to expand access to higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of over 6,000 of the world’s leading educational institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education. Each year, the College Board helps more than seven million students prepare for a successful transition to college through programs and services in college readiness and college success — including the SAT® and the Advanced Placement Program®.
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All other products and services may be trademarks of their respective owners. Visit the College Board on the Web: www. Equity and Access Policy Statement The College Board strongly encourages educators to make equitable access a guiding principle for their AP programs by giving all willing and academically prepared students the opportunity to participate in AP. We encourage the elimination of barriers that restrict access to AP for students from ethnic, racial and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally underserved.
Schools should make every effort to ensure their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population. The College Board also believes that all students should have access to academically challenging course work before they enroll in AP classes, which can prepare them for AP success. It is only through a commitment to equitable preparation and access that true equity and excellence can be achieved. 3 Connections to the Curriculum Framework.
4 Instructional Time and Strategies. 5 Lesson 1: Rotational Inertia. 7 Activity 1: Mass Distribution and Rotational Inertia, Part 1 .10 Activity 2: Qualitative Lab — Introduction to Rotational Inertia .10 Activity 3: Demonstration — Mass Distribution and Rotational Inertia, Part 2 .11 Activity 4: Demonstration — The Rotating Eggs. 12 Activity 5: The Ring and Disk Race.
12 Activity 6: Determining Rotational Inertia of Standard Shapes. 13 Activity 7: Lab — Determination of Rotational Inertia. 13 Lesson 2: Rotational Kinetic Energy. 15 Activity 1: Demonstration — Rotational Kinetic Energy .16 Activity 2: Lab — Using Rotational Kinetic Energy for the Ball on a Ramp Lab.17 Lesson 3: Changes in Angular Momentum and Conservation of Angular Momentum .19 AP_Physics1_CM_Revision.indd 5 01/10/14 5:21 PM Lesson Summary .19 Activity 1: Demonstration — The Rotating Stool.
22 Activity 2: Demonstration — The Rotating Stool and Torque .26 Handout 1: Using the Symbols of Rotational Motion .26 Handout 2: Qualitative Lab — Introduction to Rotational Inertia. 28 Handout 3: Formative Assessment on Torque and Rotational Kinematics .32 Handout 4: Formative Assessment on Rotational Inertia, Kinematics, Kinetic Energy, and Momentum .35 Handout 5: Summative Assessment .43 Appendix A: Science Practices for AP Courses .43 Appendix B: Table of Information and Equation Tables for AP Physics 1 .45 Appendix C: Lab — Determination of Rotational Inertia .47 Appendix D: Class Activity — Determining the Angular Speed of a Fan. 50 Appendix E: Lab — Using Rotational Kinetic Energy for the Ball on a Ramp Lab. 51 Authors and Reviewers .53 AP_Physics1_CM_Revision.indd 6 01/10/14 5:21 PM Preface Preface AP® curriculum modules are exemplary instructional units composed of one or more lessons, all of which are focused on a particular curricular topic; each lesson is composed of one or more instructional activities.
Topics for curriculum modules are identified because they address one or both of the following needs: • A weaker area of student performance as evidenced by AP Exam subscores • Curricular topics that present specific instructional or learning challenges The components in a curriculum module should embody and describe or illustrate the plan/teach/assess/reflect/adjust paradigm: 1. Plan the lesson based on educational standards or objectives and considering typical student misconceptions about the topic or deficits in prior knowledge. Teach the lesson, which requires active teacher and student engagement in the instructional activities. Assess the lesson, using a method of formative assessment.
Reflect on the effect of the lesson on the desired student knowledge, skills, or abilities. Adjust the lesson as necessary to better address the desired student knowledge, skills, or abilities. Curriculum modules will provide AP teachers with the following tools to effectively engage students in the selected topic: • Enrichment of content knowledge regarding the topic • Pedagogical content knowledge that corresponds to the topic • Identification of prerequisite knowledge or skills for the topic • Explicit connections to AP learning objectives (found in the AP curriculum framework or the course description) • Cohesive example lessons, including instructional activities, student worksheets or handouts, and/or formative assessments • Guidance to address student misconceptions about the topic • Examples of student work and reflections on their performance The lessons in each module are intended to serve as instructional models, providing a framework that AP teachers can then apply to their own instructional planning. Note on Internet Resources All links to online resources were verified at the time of publication.
In cases where links are no longer working, we suggest that you try to find the resource by doing a key-word Internet search. — The College Board 1 Introduction Introduction The AP Physics 1: Algebra-based curriculum includes learning objectives in rotational motion, a topic not previously part of the AP Physics B curriculum. The curriculum framework for the course — which can be found in the AP Physics 1 and 2 Course and Exam Description — addresses torque, angular motion (angular velocity, angular acceleration, and angular displacement), rotational inertia, rotational kinetic energy, and angular momentum (without vector algebra and vector calculus). Teachers who have not been teaching rotational motion will benefit from this curriculum module, as it includes suggestions for instructional practice, inquiry-based investigations, and formative and summative assessment materials to ease the transition to the new material in the curriculum framework.
To limit the scope of this module, we focus only on rotational inertia, rotational kinetic energy, and conservation of angular momentum. This set of lessons should follow lessons on torque, forces and torques in equilibrium, and the basics of rotational kinematics (including use of q, w, and a in kinematic equations). This curriculum module includes three lessons: • Lesson 1: Rotational Inertia • Lesson 2: Rotational Kinetic Energy • Lesson 3: Changes in Angular Momentum and Conservation of Angular Momentum Each lesson references the Physics 1 learning objectives that apply to that lesson. Other lesson components include the following: • Demonstrations and class activities that can be conducted using inexpensive materials.
• Laboratory investigations, with the idea that you should provide the opportunity for students to design as much of each lab as possible themselves. The labs are identified and described in detail in the Appendices for your benefit. Depending on the experience of students, you should limit the amount of prompting and instead encourage students to design their experiments and/or plan data collection and analysis strategies. Students are also required to keep a permanent record of their laboratory experiments — either a written or digital portfolio or bound laboratory journal.
• Handouts and other resources for use as homework assignments or classroom activities. • A formative assessment for each lesson. Formative assessments are low-stakes assessments that can help you identify areas of misunderstanding to address prior to — or during — the presentation of the lessons included here and determine students’ readiness for the next lesson. Formative assessments provide valuable feedback to inform your instructional strategies based on student performance.
They also give students insight into their learning progression and level of mastery of content and skills. 3 AP Physics 1 Curriculum Module • Recommended websites that can help reinforce concepts when used in the classroom or as assigned work for students. Connections to the Curriculum Framework The selected learning objectives identified in each lesson are related to rotational motion. We assume that some of these objectives will have been addressed prior to the module, while others are being introduced for the first time in the module.
Appendix A Each learning objective in the curriculum framework is linked with one or more science practices that capture important aspects of the work that scientists engage in. For a list of the AP Science Practices, see Appendix A or the curriculum framework in the AP Physics 1 and 2 Course and Exam Description. The science practices enable students to establish lines of evidence and use them to develop and refine testable explanations and predictions of natural phenomena. For example, Learning Objective 3.1, which involves rotational collisions, is linked with Science Practices 6.
These science practices involve making claims and predictions about natural phenomena and connecting concepts across domains. Instruction about the concept of rotational collisions, then, should involve these science practices. Lesson 3 of this module, which covers rotational collisions and Learning Objective 3.1, illustrates this instructional approach; the recommended lab connects conservation of angular momentum to conservation of linear momentum. Assessment questions based on this learning objective might include application of the concept to an everyday situation, such as analyzing what happens on a child’s merry-go-round ride when a person steps onto the ride while it is rotating.
In designing classroom examples and illustrations and structuring formative assessments, you should consider both the learning objectives and the science practices. The following boundary statement from the curriculum framework helps to define the extent of the use of vector notation in AP Physics 1: Quantities such as angular acceleration, velocity, and momentum are defined as vector quantities, but in this course the determination of “direction” is limited to clockwise and counterclockwise with respect to a given axis of rotation. Instructional Time and Strategies This unit, with the activities and related laboratory work, will require approximately 2 weeks, with 10 standard 50-minute classroom periods. The times given for the demonstrations, activities, and labs are estimates for student work during class time and do not include construction or setup time by the teacher.
Though some teachers may wish to begin the year in Physics 1 with an integrated study of the kinematics of linear and rotational motion, it is highly recommended that several units precede this unit on rotational motion — particularly if AP Physics 1 is the first course in physics for students. The development of conceptual and mathematical skills through the study of linear motion provides essential background for the study of rotational motion. Students first need to develop 4 Introduction understanding of kinematics, Newton’s laws, work and energy, and conservation of linear momentum in order to effectively draw the analogies between linear and rotational motion described in this module. It is also important for students to have developed skills in laboratory design and analysis prior to this unit.
It is assumed that students have prior knowledge of rotational kinematics and the symbols and applications of kinematic equations to rotational motion. Laboratory experiments in which students have investigated torques and static equilibrium (such as construction of mobiles and related calculations) would provide good preparation for the progression to rotational motion, accelerated systems, and conservation laws applied to rotational motion. Equation Tables Equations that students might use in solving problems or answering questions will be provided for students to use during all parts of the AP Physics 1 Exam. It is not Appendix B intended for students to memorize the equations, so teachers can feel comfortable in allowing students to use the AP Physics 1 equation tables for all activities and assessments.
For the AP Physics 1 equation tables, see Appendix B or the AP Physics 1 and 2 Course and Exam Description.