Lesson Plan: The Vector Product of Two Vectors Physics

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This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to calculate the vector product of two vectors using both the components of the vectors and the magnitudes of the two vectors and the angle between them.

Objectives

Students will be able to

recognize that the result of a vector product operation is another vector,
use to find the vector product of two vectors that are given in component form, where both vectors are in the plane,
recognize that and have the same magnitude but point in opposite directions,
state the results of and ,
recognize that if two vectors are parallel to each other, their vector product is zero,
recognize that the vector product of two vectors has a maximum value when the two vectors are perpendicular,
use to find the vector product of two vectors, where the length of each vector and the angle between them are known.

Prerequisites

Students should already be familiar with

what a vector is: it represents a distance and a direction,
the idea that a vector in 3 dimensions has 3 components,
how to represent a vector in component form using notation.

Exclusions

Students will not cover

the vector product of vectors that are not in the plane,
matrices and matrix algebra.