Lesson Plan: Vector Addition Physics
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to add two or more vectors in two dimensions using both graphical and algebraic methods.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- add two or more vectors together using purely graphical methods,
- add two or more vectors together given the component forms of the vectors using notation.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- what a vector is and that it represents a magnitude and a direction,
- the idea that vectors can be used to represent physical quantities, such as displacement and velocity,
- how vectors can be represented graphically,
- how to represent vectors in component form using notation,
- how to convert between graphical and component form representations of vectors.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- vector subtraction,
- vectors in three dimensions,
- the scalar product of two vectors,
- the vector product of two vectors.