Physlets Physics Lab

Students will be able to utilize the computers in the lab to run Physics Applets (Phys-lets)and explore basic phenomena such as measurement, motion, forces and more.
Once the physlets program is installed on the computers in the computer lab students will learn how to interact with the controls.
The initial lesson involves a model of the earth and several balls thrown with different velocities from a high mountain. Student give the balls whatever velocity they choose and observe that the greater the initial velocity - the farther around the model earth it travels. They also learn that at some critical velocity, the ball begins to travel in a stable orbit because it follows the same parabola as the curve of the earth.
Students learn that the laws of motion are determined from experimentation rather than lecture and move on to other such determination using other physlets.
This lab is further explored using ranking tasks that show how objects move in 2-dimensions.