Lesson: The Mechanical Energy of a Pendulum Physics

Students will be able to

• recall at which points in its motion a pendulum has the greatest and least amounts of gravitational potential energy,
• recall at which points in its motion a pendulum has the greatest and least amounts of kinetic energy,
• identify and draw the change in potential and kinetic energies of a pendulum with time on a graph,
• recall that the mechanical energy of a pendulum is constant,
• identify the frequency and period of a pendulum from graphs of its potential or kinetic energy with time,
• use to find the gravitational potential energy of a pendulum at a given angular position.