In this lesson, students are introduced to both potential energy and kinetic energy as forms of mechanical energy. A hands-on activity demonstrates how potential energy can change into kinetic energy by swinging a pendulum, illustrating the concept of conservation of energy. Students calculate the potential energy of the pendulum and predict how fast it will travel knowing that the potential energy will convert into kinetic energy. They verify their predictions by measuring the speed of the pendulum.

In this Explore on Your Own activity, students will watch a short video about landing spacecraft on Mars and then answer some questions.

Students learn about landslides, discovering that there are different types of landslides that occur at different speeds from very slow to very quick. All landslides are the result of gravity, friction and the materials involved. Both natural and human-made factors contribute to landslides. Students learn what makes landslides dangerous and what engineers are doing to prevent and avoid landslides.

Isaac Newton's famous thought experiment about what would happen if you launched a cannon from a mountaintop at a high velocity comes to life with an interactive computer model. You are charged with the task of launching a satellite into space. Control the angle and speed at which the satellite is launched, and see the results to gain a basic understanding of escape velocity.

The purpose of this exercise is to learn how to think about gravity, learn about scientific methodology, and transition from the Aristotelian to Newtonian to Einsteinian understanding of gravity.

The purpose of this exercise is to learn how to think about gravity, learn about scientific methodology, and transition from the Aristotelian to the Newtonian understanding of gravity.

Students learn about how biomedical engineers create assistive devices for persons with fine motor skill disabilities. They learn about types of forces, balanced and unbalanced forces, and the relationship between form and function, as well as the structure of the hand. They do this by designing, building and testing their own hand "gripper" prototypes that are able to grasp and lift a 200 ml cup of sand.

In this lesson, students learn about the physical properties of the Moon. They compare these to the properties of the Earth to determine how life would be different for astronauts living on the Moon. Using their understanding of these differences, they are asked to think about what types of products engineers would need to design for us to live comfortably on the Moon.

Students learn about the weighted mean by building spreadsheets that apply this concept to the average density of the oceanic lithosphere.

Students learn about the weighted mean by building spreadsheets that apply this concept to the average density of the oceanic lithosphere.

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Students are introduced to the structure, function and purpose of locks and dams, which involves an introduction to Pascal's law, water pressure and gravity.

Can you avoid the boulder field and land safely, just before your fuel runs out, as Neil Armstrong did in 1969? Our version of this classic video game accurately simulates the real motion of the lunar lander with the correct mass, thrust, fuel consumption rate, and lunar gravity. The real lunar lander is very hard to control.

Can you avoid the boulder field and land safely, just before your fuel runs out, as Neil Armstrong did in 1969? Our version of this classic video game accurately simulates the real motion of the lunar lander with the correct mass, thrust, fuel consumption rate, and lunar gravity. The real lunar lander is very hard to control.

A realistic mass and spring laboratory. Hang masses from springs and adjust the spring stiffness and damping. You can even slow time. Transport the lab to different planets. A chart shows the kinetic, potential, and thermal energy for each spring.

A realistic mass and spring laboratory. Hang masses from springs and adjust the spring stiffness and damping. You can even slow time. Transport the lab to different planets. A chart shows the kinetic, potential, and thermal energy for each spring.

Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) describe mass and weight and the differences between the two in this video from NASA’s Teaching From Space initiative.

This is a physics lab where students test their reaction time by using the acceleration due to gravity. The use of Excel is introduced in this lab to analyze data.

Students learn to determine the velocity of moving objects by doing simple analysis of video clips.

Using the LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT kit, students construct experiments to measure the time it takes a free falling body to travel a specified distance. Students use the touch sensor, rotational sensor, and the NXT brick to measure the time of flight for the falling object at different release heights. After the object is released from its holder and travels a specified distance, a touch sensor is triggered and time of object's descent from release to impact at touch sensor is recorded and displayed on the screen of the NXT. Students calculate the average velocity of the falling object from each point of release, and construct a graph of average velocity versus time. They also create a best fit line for the graph using spreadsheet software. Students use the slope of the best fit line to determine their experimental g value and compare this to the standard value of g.

The free-air effect tells us that as elevation above sea level increases, gravitational acceleration g decreases at the rate of about 0.3086 mgal/meter. This effect is routinely corrected for when making gravity surveys. We will use the LaCoste & Romberg gravimeter to measure the free-air effect in a tall building on campus, and compare with the theoretical value.

keywords: gravity; vertical gradient; gravimeter

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