Post #4 - Unit 2

Today in class I learned about a position vs. time graph and a velocity vs. time graph. We did a lab involving a position vs. time graph. In a position vs. time graph you can tell if a person is going forwards or backwards by the slope. Positive slopes means that the person is moving backwards and a negative slope means the person is moving forwards. If the slope is zero, the person is staying still in one spot. In a velocity vs. time graph, you can tell how fast a person is going at a given time. Since the velocity is meters per second the position vs. time graph can be translated into a velocity vs. time graph. In the picture above, the velocity at 1-2 seconds is 2 m/s because the slope in the position vs. time graph is 2. When a person is staying still the velocity goes to 0.

We also learned about acceleration -  a change in velocity per unit in time. The slope of a velocity vs. time graph is acceleration. The area under the "curve" of a velocity vs time graph is the distance traveled (displacement).