Lesson Plan: Measurement Uncertainty and Resolution Physics
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to define resolution-based and random measurement uncertainties and show how they affect the values of measurements.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- identify the resolution of a measuring device and the precision of measurements made with it,
- identify the uncertainty of a measurement due to the resolution of the measuring instrument that made the measurement,
- identify the number of significant figures in a value,
- determine to an appropriate precision the result of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing values that have a given precision,
- convert between absolute and percentage uncertainty values,
- determine the random uncertainty of a set of values.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- the difference between accuracy and precision.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- operation of specific measuring devices.