Understandings: International-mindedness:
• International cooperation is needed for tracking shipping, land-based transport, aircraft and objects in space
• Fluid resistance and terminal speed
Utilization:
Applications and skills:
• Diving, parachuting and similar activities where fluid resistance affects motion
• Determining instantaneous and average values for velocity, speed and acceleration
• The accurate use of ballistics requires careful analysis
• Solving problems using equations of motion for uniform acceleration
• Quadratic functions (see Mathematics HL sub-topic 2.6; Mathematics SL sub-topic 2.4; Mathematical studies SL sub-topic 6.3)
• Sketching and interpreting motion graphs
• The kinematic equations are treated in calculus form in Mathematics HL sub-topic 6.6 and Mathematics SL sub-topic 6.6
• Determining the acceleration of free-fall experimentally
• Analysing projectile motion, including the resolution of vertical and horizontal components of acceleration, velocity and displacement
• Qualitatively describing the effect of fluid resistance on falling objects or projectiles, including reaching terminal speed