CENCO® AP Physics Lab 1.03: Accelerating Objects

Measure the acceleration due to gravity three different ways.

Introducing the new CENCO AP Physics lab series!

Ideal for AP Physics 1 and 2, AP Physics C, IB DP Physics, and advanced/honors physics courses, each of the 35 experiments is aligned with the revised College Board AP curriculum. These innovative labs go way beyond traditional exercises, turning real-world scenarios into true guided-inquiry investigations. Students are given a goal, but the investigation is driven by their ideas. As they draw conclusions, students report their results using the Claim-Evidence-Reasoning model. The teacher guides and student manuals are authored and reviewed by AP Physics teachers with decades of combined experience, so you can trust the setups to be successful in your classroom. All labs come complete with instructions and materials for one lab group of 2 to 4 students. For your convenience, labs are packaged to allow you to purchase only what is required for each experiment.

Every physics student eventually knows the value of g: 9.8 m/s². For AP or advanced students, who have already done at least one experiment in which they calculate the acceleration due to gravity, this experiment prompts them to think more deeply about the measurements and methods. Instead of just one method followed by error analysis, this investigation compares and contrasts three different methods: the Tower of Pisa experiment (time in free fall), Galileo’s method (acceleration down an inclined plane), and change in velocity in free fall using a velocimeter. As in any great advanced physics lab, students practice linearizing their various data sets.