Traditional Physics Worksheets
I’ve also made a couple of traditional physics worksheets. I do emphasize the most common misconceptions in these, like the impetus misconception for the Free Body Diagrams worksheet.
Free Body Diagrams
I developed this worksheet for my students who are taking AP Physics 1 or are just learning about forces and Newton's Laws. Because it's qualitative and not quantitative, it would also work well for middle school students who are learning about forces in a conceptual way.
The Content
I included the basic “draw a free body diagram of this situation” type problems, but also focused on those that are particularly counter-intuitive (like how in freefall the force is always straight down regardless of whether the object is moving up or down.)
There are also problems where a free body diagram is given and students are asked to describe a scenario that fits with the diagram.
What’s Included
20 problems
9 pages
Answer Key Included
Circular Motion
I made this worksheet for my students studying circular motion.
It covers:
linear vs rotational speed
centripetal acceleration
finding linear speed from period and vice versa
centripetal force
This worksheet includes 40 practice problems, plus an answer key. I have them grouped by type, so you can either have your students do one section at a time, or a few problems from each section. (I always aim to have more practice available than they need.)
The illustrations are fun, engaging, and clear, and I included everything a typical AP Physics 1 class covers:
friction for cars making turns
apparent weight at the top and bottom of a circular path
situations where the centripetal force is supplied by tension, gravity, the normal force, or friction
I also included a section of conceptual questions, which I find help give students a sense of what circular motion actually feels like.
I also included the classic trick questions, like "if you tie a weight to a string and swing it around, but suddenly the string breaks, what path will the weight take?"