Course description

This course is suitable for high school students, at which level it is appropriate for blended learning, as well as for early college or applied university students, at which level it can also be employed in a remedial or flipped classroom setting.

Description of the course: this module is the first part of a dynamics course and covers one-dimensional motion. It starts with basic foundational concepts such as the distinction between scalars and vectors, reference frames and coordinates. It introduces basic physical notions of quantities like displacement, velocity, and acceleration, and ends with descriptions of one-dimensional motion through equations of motion and graphical analysis, including the description of free-falling objects in the context of gravity.

Study load: 0.25-0.75 ECT.

Sample course plan

In the tab below, you can find a selection of suggested exercises for classroom demonstration and for student practice. Later in this document, you can also find a sample diagnostic test. Assuming a four hour per week class load, this module (including its introductory chapter) can be covered in three weeks.

Assessments

In the tab below, you can find a selection of exercises that are suitable for diagnosing a student's level in the contents of this module. Note that knowledge of significant figures is required to solve most of the exercises in this module.

Best practices and tips

It is important to highlight the distinction between scalars and vectors, as they are not only relevant in subsequent chapters, but also crucial in distinguishing the physical concepts of distance from displacement and of speed from velocity. Moreover, the problem-solving basics in one-dimensional motion provide students with a step-by-step approach to problem-solving in physics that can be useful at any stage of their physics education.

This chapter is adapted from the second chapter of the OpenStax book College Physics 2e. Our exercise packages contain adapted exercises from the OpenStax book as well as original SOWISO exercises. Further practice material can be found in the OpenStax page of the College Physics 2e book.

Additional resources
This module only requires basic mathematics knowledge as a prerequisite. These can be found in chapters 1 through 8 of SOWISO's Basic Math course. In particular, no differentiation or integration is needed to complete this module.