Lesson Plan: The Period of a Pendulum Physics
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to calculate the period and frequency of a pendulum given its length and the local acceleration due to gravity.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- use to find the period of a pendulum,
- use to find the frequency of a pendulum,
- realize that the period of a pendulum is only dependent on its length and the local acceleration due to gravity,
- realize that the period of a pendulum is independent of the mass of the pendulum.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- pendulums,
- describing the motion of a pendulum,
- the idea that a pendulum is an example of oscillatory motion.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- the motion of a pendulum that rises to large angles,
- double pendula,
- using trigonometric functions to describe periodic motion,
- deriving the formula for the period of a pendulum,
- resonance.
