Objective: Students will understand and be able to work problems with systems of kinetic and potential energy.  Evidence will be provided that a system in which energy can be only in kinetic or potential form has a constant energy equal to the sum of the kinetic and potential energy?


Demonstrate and discuss the energy changes in a swinging pendulum.  Compute the kinetic and potential energy changes that are happening.  Show that PE +KE = constant.  State the principle of the conservation of energy.

Show a short video clip of a roller coaster and discuss the conservation of potential and kinetic energy.

Work an application problem on the board, such as gravitational potential of a satellite and then finding the escape velocity.  Ask class if there are any questions.

Assign problems from the book for students to work on in partners for the rest of the class period.


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