Teacher Notes - Texas Instruments TI-83 Plus Software Manual

6: Vectors
Objectives
Upon completion of this section, students should be able to:
Draw a vector in the X-Y plane given magnitude and direction (specified in degrees or cardinal
directions: North, South, East, or West).
Resolve vectors into perpendicular components.
Add and subtract two or more vectors.
Multiply a scalar and a vector.
Multiply two vectors (scalar and vector products).
Relevant National Science Education Standards
From Science as Inquiry—Content Standard A:
Use Technology and Mathematics to Improve Investigations and Communications. Mathematics
is essential in scientific inquiry. Mathematical tools and models guide and improve the posing of
questions, gathering data, constructing explanations and communicating results.
Common Student Errors
Students generally have difficulty understanding that direction is fundamental to a vector
quantity; it is not sufficient to merely specify magnitude of a quantity such as velocity. The
INTRODUCTION
"remember the map" if they forget to include direction in later vector operations.
Using the Fundamental Topics in Science Application
To begin the application, press
Contents page shows the last place the student was in
. The student may need to press
TOOLS
Table of Contents and then select
begin. You may need to tell students how to navigate the application, if they are not yet familiar
with it, or print Navigating Fundamental Topics in Science on pages viii–x of the Introduction.
Introduction
This section explores the concept that both magnitude and direction are important and
necessary when describing certain physical quantities (vectors). A displacement example is used
to illustrate this concept.
Fundamental Topics in Science
helps emphasize this point to them, but you may need to remind them to
, select
1:FUNDAMENTAL TOPICS
© 2001 Texas Instruments
FunSci , and press any key. The displayed Table of
FUNDAMENTAL TOPICS
à Ä
one or more times to go to the Science Chapters
UP
,
6:VECTORS

Teacher Notes

or
SCIENCE
, to
1:INTRODUCTION
Teacher Notes 6-6