Sports Chapter 1: Track and Field Championship

Chapter Challenge
The scenario and challenge for this chapter is for the physics class to write a physics manual about track and field training for your high school team to help improve its performance.

Chapter Summary
To gain knowledge and understanding of physics principles necessary to meet this challenge, students work collaboratively on activities in which they apply concepts of potential and kinetic energy as they collect and analyze data collected in investigations of speed, acceleration, velocity, projectile motion, and gravity. These experiences engage students in the content identified in the National Science Education Standards.

Activity Summaries

Physics Principles

Activity One: Running the Race

Students time classmates to calculate the average speed as they run set distances. They then compare and analyze differences in speed of one runner at different distances and among different runners for the same distance.

• Relationship of speed, distance and time
• Kinetic energy and motion

Activity Two: Analysis of Trends

Students examine graphs representing results from track meets to explore trends in average speed. From this, they learn about extrapolation of data and the use of data in making predictions.

• Average Speed
• Using data as basis for predictions

Activity Three: Who Wins the Race?

Students use a ticker-tape timer to investigate speed of cars on sloped tracks. Analysis of the tapes introduces the concept that the average speed is not the same as actual speed at all points.

• Acceleration
• Average Speed
• Friction

Activity Four: Understanding the Sprint

Students create and analyze graphs of split time vs. distance as an introduction to instantaneous speed and how a runner changes speed during a race.

• Acceleration
• Instantaneous Speed
• Average Speed

Activity Five: Acceleration

Using a simple accelerometer to monitor changes in motion, students investigate acceleration and deceleration while walking, then with physics lab carts.

• Acceleration
• Instantaneous Speed
• Average Speed

Activity Six: Running a Smart Race

Focusing on split times and the changes in speed over the total distance, students explore how a runner can apply concepts of constant speed and acceleration to plan a strategy for winning a race.

• Acceleration
• Velocity and Speed

Activity Seven: Increasing Top Speed

Students measure their own stride length as an introduction to wavelengths. They then investigate the relationship of speed in a race to stride length and stride frequency of the runner.

• Wavelength
• Velocity = Frequency x Wavelength

Activity Eight: Projectile Motion

To develop understanding of the shot put, students explore the
differences between the motion and landing position of objects dropped straight down to those with projected motion.

• Projectile Motion
• Gravity
• Free Fall

Activity Nine: The Shot Put

Students compare mathematical and physical models of projectile motion to that of a shot put. They apply this to describe the vertical and horizontal motion of the projected object, and predict its trajectory.

• Projectile Motion
• Gravity
• Trajectories

Activity Ten: Energy in the Pole Vault

Students use a penny launched from a ruler to model motion during the pole vault. They connect their observations to the concept of energy conservation.

• Gravitational Potential Energy
• Transfer of Mechanical Energy
• Conservation of Energy