Graphical Story - Loudoun County Public Schools



Graphical Story

A trip to school:

You wake up in the morning and put on your best smelling, school appropriate attire that you can find in the clumps of clothes covering the floor of your room. You grab all of your school materials and head to your car. When walking across the lawn at a calm, constant speed to get to your car these are distance vs. time and velocity vs. time graphs representing your trip.

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As you reach the door of your car, you realize that you forgot your calculator and without it, will have to do the math in your head in physics class. Since you totally forget how to even add double digit numbers in your head, you decide to go back for it. You head back to the house at the same speed you went to your car. These graphs represent that trip. (they use the same reference points, that’s why they give negative values)

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Coming back out of the house you realize that you are now going to be late, so you run to your car at a fast, constant speed. These graphs represent that trip.

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In your car you turn the key and nothing happens, then you remember that last night after you came home from a physics study session at your best friend’s house, you left your headlights on. Your battery is dead. But, you remember that your neighbor across the street is a 10th grader and has to ride the bus because his mom thinks you are a dangerous driver and will not let him ride with you. So, you walk across the street to where he is and wait for the bus with him. When it comes you both get on and the bus takes off down Main Street, accelerating to its top speed of 35 miles per hour. These graphs represent that part of the bus ride.

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Then the bus maintains that top speed for a while, represented by these graphs.

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The driver sees that the light at the intersection of Maple and Main Street is red and has to slow down (decelerate) to a stop, as shown by these graphs.

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Unfortunately the bus breaks down at the light and you all have to get out and push the rest of the way to the school. You all manage to get the bus going faster and faster (accelerating) until you get to the school where you realize the brakes are no longer working and the bus stops abruptly as it hits the side of the school. This is represented by these graphs.

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That is a story represented by Motion Graphs. The distance is a constant progression between school and home and that is the only motion that is being graphed. Towards the school is positive and away from the school is negative. It does not matter that it is not a straight-line trip because we are just graphing distance to the school.

Complete the next page (identifying the parts of the trip)

Then you and a partner need to create your own graphical story in this same fashion. Keep it PG

You need…at least 6 parts,

At least 1 acceleration, 1 positive velocity, 1 negative velocity, 1 zero velocity

Then combine it all onto the large graph, clearly labeling the distance axis and the time axis

Trade with another group and check the large graphs with the story to be sure they are accurate.

When you are happy with your story, illustrate it!

Here are two graphs that roughly represent the whole trip. Can you label the parts of the trip?

A few reminders as you create your story: Focus on the rate of change of each section of the graph and determine whether the rate of change is constant, varying from fast to slower or slow to faster or zero.

|Criteria |Yes |

|Does your story include: |( |

|the description of an action? (e.g., distance travelled by bicycle, change of height of the aircraft…) | |

|the starting position of the action? | |

|the ending position of the action? | |

|the total time taken for the action? | |

|the direction or change for each section of the action? | |

|the time(s) of any changes in direction or changes in the action? | |

|the amount of change and time taken for each section of the action? | |

|an interesting story that ties all sections of the graph together? | |

Scale your graph, and label each axis and illustrate.

To be turned in (one per group):

- Story!

- Position vs. Time graph, with each section clearly marked.

- Velocity vs. Time graph, with each section clearly marked.

- Illustrations!

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