There are many scientific words used in everyday vernacular that although not always wrong, are often used without knowledge of their full scientific meaning. This is arguably most true for physics terminology. In order to cement their understandings and grasp the full meaning of kinematics (the study of motion and its applications) the grade 12 physics class designed and conducted two different investigations using ramps, rulers, stopwatches and toy cars. The first investigation was an activity that had the students calculate the average speed of a toy car, while the second was a lab that had them determining the average acceleration of a toy car. Observing the students during both investigations leaves me confident in knowing that they will most assuredly be accelerating with a positive velocity towards a good grade in our first unit of the course.
