AP PHYSICS 1 – Introduction and Summer Homework 2014
Instructor: Ms. Fitzmaurice (F210)
Instructor Email: hfitzmaurice@gmail.com
Instructor Phone: (978) 808 -7780
COURSE BASICS
Welcome to AP Physics 1 at Pittsburg High School.
The goals of this course are to
• Train you to think critically about problems from multiple angles, gathering information and ideas
from various sources.
• Train you to plan, execute, record, interpret, and refine your own experiments.
• Develop your ability to communicate in the context of technical subjects.
• Improve your ability to apply the mathematical skills you have learned to real – life situations.
• Expose you to the rigor that will come with college science classes.
• Help you earn a good (shoot for 5!) score on the AP Physics 1 Exam.
• Stretch, bruise, heal, and grow your brain in as many directions as possible.
IMPORTANT DATES
This summer homework is designed to take roughly 20 hours in total. I highly recommend that you start
the physics summer homework at the beginning of the summer and spend 1 – 2 hours on it each week,
especially if you are taking other AP classes. If you do this, not only you will avoid the frantic end – of –
summer rush, but you will probably learn the material better. Physics, like many other subjects, takes a
while to “gel” in your brain.
• Before June 10th, 2014: There are a few things that you need to do before you leave for the
summer.
 Get your textbook from the library!
 Let me know if you do not have RELIABLE internet access at your home! The
structure of the class next year will require you to watch online videos, take notes from
those videos, and submit homework answers into online forms. If you do not have reliable
home internet access, I will find a way to work around this, but it is very important that I
know how many students are in this situation before we leave for the summer.
• By June 15th, 2014: Send me an email at hfitzmaurice@gmail.com, so that I have your email
address. I will be sending out a brief survey via email about the previous experiences, learning
preferences, interests, and resources available to students in the class. Before you send me the
email, read through this packet in its entirety, and let me know that you have done so in the email.
Feel free to introduce yourself and ask me any questions you might have about the summer
homework or the course in general.
• By July 6th, 2014: There are a few things that you will need over the course of the summer. Check
your email during the week of July 6th for:
 A google-form survey. It should take you less than 15 minutes to complete, but will help
me in my planning.
 Video lessons. All of the summer homework assigned is based either on review material or
material found in the first two chapters of your textbook, some students struggle to learn
from textbooks alone. I will be providing video lessons to help you with the topics in parts
II, III, and IV of the summer homework.
 Your “socratic dialogue” partner and his or her email.
• By August 20th, 2014: Complete Parts I – IV of the summer homework. All summer homework is
due on the first day of class, will be graded, and will count as your first test grade. Late summer
homework will lose 10% per day that it is late.
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•
•
First Week of School: We will spend a short time reviewing the concepts (including the lab!)
covered in your summer homework.
August 27th, 2014: You will be tested on the material covered in your summer homework
(including the lab!).
SUMMER HOMEWORK OVERVIEW
In addition to the emails that you must submit over the summer, there are five main parts to the AP
Physics summer homework.
• Part I: Experimental Planning, Critical Thinking, and Communication
• Part II: Math Review
 Geometry
 Algebra
 Linear Graphs: Physical meaning of slopes and areas
• Part III: Giancoli Chapter 1 – Introduction, Measurement, Estimation
• Part IV: Giancoli Chapter 2 – Describing Motion: Kinematics in One Dimension
• Part V: Argumentation
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Part I: Experimental Planning, Execution, and Communication
One of the main objectives of AP Physics 1 is that students develop in their ability to plan, execute, and
communicate the results of scientific experiments. Some of you may already be comfortable with these
skills, but many of you will find them challenging at first. This summer, you will complete your first
laboratory experiment, as detailed below.
Goal: The goal of this lab is for you to estimate as precisely as possible how long it would take a penny to
sink to the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean.
Materials:
• Penny
• Quarter
• String
•
Whatever else you think you need (Don’t
go out and buy a lot of things! Use what
you have lying around your home!)
Procedure Requirements:
Although as the year progresses our experiments will become more and more open-ended, our initial
experiments may include some required procedural steps. In this experiment, you will be measuring the
amount of time that it takes for a penny to sink to the bottom of different depths of water. In conducting
your experiment, you must include at least 10 (you may choose to do more) different depths. However,
the depths that you choose, the manner in which you measure those depths, the manner in which you
obtain time measurements, and the mathematical techniques you use to obtain an estimate is up to you.
Questions to Consider in Planning Your Experiment:
1. How will you measure time? What limitations are there on the precision of your time
measurements? How could you overcome some of those limitations? (There are many ways to do
this with very simple technology.)
2. How will you measure the depth of the water?
3. How will you drop the penny?
4. What depths of water will you use and how will you retrieve your penny?
5. How will you use your measurements to make an estimate? How accurate or precise do you think
that your estimate will be?
6. How many times will you measure the time it takes to sink at each depth?
Data Table, Graphs, and Calculations:
An important part of scientific communication is organizing your data into a manner in which it is easy to
read. In this lab, I expect you to represent your data both in a table and in a scatterplot . You may you’re
your data either on graph paper or on a computer. These representations should also help you to use your
data to extrapolate how long the penny will take to sink to the bottom of the ocean.
Depth of
Water (m)
Time to the
bottom (s)
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Write-up: You will complete a full lab report. The parts of the lab report are detailed below.
• Purpose – Students should clearly state the purpose of their experiment in 1-3 sentences. Students
may not copy the purpose of the lab directly from the assignment sheet but must paraphrase the
lab in their own words.
• Approach – Students should summarize the approach that they take in 1-3 sentences.
• Procedure and Narration – Students should explain what their group did step – by – step. This
explanation should include both and explanation and a rationale behind any calculations. If you
are repeating the same calculation several times, you may give an example calculation, rather than
explaining the same thing 5 times. This section should be written in paragraph form, rather than as
a list.
• Observations and Data – Students should record general observations and summarize their data
in a table or graph. All tables and graphs should be introduced with a sentence or two. This section
should be 1-2 paragraphs in total.
• Analysis – Discuss your results. Do they make sense? Where were there possibilities for
experimental error. This section should be 1-2 paragraphs in total.
• Conclusions and Future Work – Use your data to form a conclusion, related to the purpose of
the lab. Explain how you could change your procedure to get better results if you had more time.
This section should be 1-2 paragraphs in total.
Part II: Math Review
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(This part should take you about 3 hours.)
In AP physics, we will be using Algebra, Geometry, and a little bit of Precalc on a daily basis. In order to
refresh your memory in these subjects, I will be asking you to do a bit of math review over the summer.
Although you could do all of this in one sitting, my suggestion is that you do one or two of these
problems a day. (Each problem should take between 30 s and 5 minutes.) That way, you will keep the
mathematical part of your brain awake throughout the summer.
1.
Being able to manipulate formulae to solve for a variable is an extremely important skill in Physics. It
is done to isolate a single variable to make problem solving easier. You will be accustomed to solving
problems in this manner by the end of the course. The formulae below are a few of the ones we will
be using during the course. Your task is to manipulate the variables algebraically and solve for the
variable indicated.
a.
v 2 = vo + 2a( x − xo ) , a = ______________
b.
K=
c.
2
1 2
mv
2
,m = ______________
F=K
q1 q 2
r2
, q1 = ______________
d.
Fg = G
m1m2
r2
, r = ______________
e.
B=
µ0 I
2π r
_______________
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mλL
d
,d =
_______________
g. pV = nRT
,T =
_______________
h. τ = rF sin θ
, sin θ = ________
f.
2.
xm =
The geometry skills necessary in Physics involve being able to calculate angles, find lengths of lines,
and understand basic geometric terms. Solve the following geometric problems using the figures
provided.
B
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C
A
Figure
θ
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Figure
Figure
a. In figure A, line B touches the circle at a single point. Line A extends through the center of the
circle.
i.
What term can be used to describe line B in reference to the circle? _______________
ii. How large is the angle between lines A and B?
_______________
iii. If the radius of the circle is 5.5 cm, what is the circumference in meters? ____________
iv. If the radius of the circle is 5.5 cm, what is the area in square meters? ______________
b. In figure B, what is the measure of angle C?
______________
c. In figure C, what is the measure of angle θ ?
_____________
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y
θ
40o
x
d. The diagram above shows an object sitting on a ramp. A coordinate axis has been included for
reference and is tilted along the x-axis. The diagram is not drawn to scale. This is a common
diagram in Physics when dealing with objects on sloped surfaces. How large is angleθ?
e. One of the first concepts we will be dealing with involves using graphs to describe the motion of
objects. One aspect of these graphs that you will become accustomed to hearing is referred to as
“the area under the curve.” This refers to the area of the geometric shape created by the graph.
Using this graph, calculate the following:
i.
What is the area under the curve? _____________
A
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ii.
What is the slope of section A? _______________
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iii.
What is the slope of section B? _______________
7
B
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3.
Using the generic triangle to the right, Right Triangle Trigonometry and
Pythagorean Theorem solve the following. Your calculator must be in degree
mode.
a. θ = 55o and c = 32 m, solve for a and b.
b.
_______________ _______________
θ = 45o and a = 15 m/s, solve for b & c.
_______________
c.
_______________
b = 17.8 m and θ = 65o, solve for a &
c.
______________ ________________
4.
Graphing – For each of the sets of data below,
a. Graph the data points on the grid below. (Make sure you include a title, scale, and units!)
b. Draw a line of best fit for those data points.
c. Calculate the slope, area under the curve, and intercept of the line of best fit.
Data Set 1: (Graph Weight vs. Length)
Slope:_________
Area:__________
Intercept:_______
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Data Set 2: (Graph m vs. P)
Slope:_________
Area:__________
Intercept:_____
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Parts III & IV: Chapters 1 & 2 in GIANCOLI
Reading a Physics Textbook:
“Listening to recordings won’t teach you to play piano (though it can help), and reading a textbook won’t
teach you physics (though it can help) . . . I urge you to read with a pencil (not a highlighter).” ~D.V.
Schroeder
Parts III and IV consist of reading (some of) the first two chapters in your textbook and doing problems
from each chapter. I suggest reading each section on a different day and treating it as one night’s worth of
homework, rather than trying to cram several sections into one day. Going through the sections in this
way allows your brain a little bit of time to process. Although I will not require that you take notes in any
particular way, I do require that you take notes when you read and your notes will be collected as part of
the summer homework. I have provided an example of the quality of notes that I expect.
Read the section before trying to do any of the problems and then go back to the text as necessary when
you are doing the problems. Finally, do not try to read the textbook as quickly as you would read an
English or History Textbook! Read the text slowly and make sure that you understand what you are
reading.
Writing Problems Up “Nicely”:
In most college science classes, you will be required to turn in problem sets on a weekly basis, rather than
having nightly homework. In these classes, you will be required to write your problem sets up in very
particular ways. Furthermore, AP graders (and I) will assign more partial credit for answers that are
understandable and that clearly demonstrate an understanding of the problem.
For your summer homework and for the formal problem sets that you do in my class, I will require that
you write problems up “nicely,” and 10% of your score on those problem sets will consist of “style points.”
“Nicely” written problems must include:
• A rephrasing of the problem statement in your own words.
• An explanation for any steps that are not basic algebra.
• Complete sentences.
An example of a “nicely” written problem can be found after my example of notes.
Example Videos:
Example Videos and Video lessons will be sent out on July 6th, 2014. These are not mandatory, but last
year I found that many students had trouble learning “just” from the book. Please note that these videos
are not a replacement for reading and taking notes from the book. Instead, use them as an extra resource if
you are having trouble with the assigned problems after you have tried to learn from the book.
Part III Sections: (This should take you roughly 5 hours.)
Read the following sections and do the problems listed below.
Section 1 – 4: Measurement and Uncertainty; Significant Figures
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1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9
Section 1 – 5: Units, Standards and the SI System
Section 1 – 6: Converting Units
12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23
Section 1 – 7: Order of Magnitude: Rapid Estimating
24, 25, 27, 28
Section 1 – 8: Dimensions and Dimensional Analysis
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Part IV Sections: (This should take you roughly 5 - 7 hours.)
Read the following sections and do the problems listed below.
Section 2 – 1: Reference Frames and Displacement
Section 2 – 2: Average Velocity
Section 2 – 3: Instantaneous Velocity
1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13
Section 2 – 4: Acceleration
16, 17, 19
Section 2 – 5: Motion at Constant Acceleration
Section 2 – 6: Solving Problems
21, 23, 24, 27, 29, 31
Part V: Argumentation
Although much of this class will consist of solving problems that ultimately have a “correct answer,” it is
important to remember that in practice, science is the pursuit of open – ended questions and puzzles.
There are no “correct steps” to most of science. Scientists have to guess and fumble their way to the
answers that they are looking for, using their intuition. Often, they don’t take the most efficient route to
their findings and at the cutting edge (and further back from the cutting edge than you might expect),
there are no definite “right answers.” Discoveries are challenged, scrutinized, and argued for and against,
and through iterations of struggle, better and better ideas are developed.
Throughout the year, you will experience this in the context of labs, debates, challenge questions, and
essays. Always keep in mind that even if an idea or argument is partially incorrect, there is
probably something valuable in that idea or argument. It is probable that many of the “misconceptions”
that you will hold over the course of the year were once held to be “correct” by the scientific community
as a whole.
To get you used to the idea of fumbling around for an answer, making and defending an arguments, and
presenting counter-arguments to differing opinions, you will engage one of your classmates in a Socratic
Dialogue. The goal of this exercise is for you to practice your debate, not for you to come to the correct
answer. For each of the prompts below, you will be engaged with another student from the class.
Procedure (for each question):
1. The first person to send the other the email gets to choose his or her own answer. In the first email,
the writer will indicate his or her choice and explain the reasoning behind their choice.
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2. The second person will respond with an alternate choice, will defend that choice, and a pose a
question or challenge to the first person.
3. The first person will respond to the question or challenge and pose a counter question or challenge.
4. Repeat step 3 until each person has sent 3 emails.
Prompt 1: Dropping a Cow from an Airplane
An airplane is flying along at high speed. At some
point in time the airplane drops a cow out of the
doors. The picture on the right shows several
possible trajectory’s of the cow.
• Explain which path the cow will take as it
falls to the ground and why you think this
is the case.
Prompt 2: The Slide
Your little cousin is playing on the playground. He wants to pick the slide that will allow him to have the
greatest speed by the time he gets to the bottom. Assuming that there is no friction between your cousin
and the slide, which of the slides shown below should he pick?
Feel free to email me if you have any questions about the homework or the course.
Have a great summer!
- Ms. Fitzmaurice
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