Acceleration: Speeding Up and Slowing Down
How quickly does your speed change?
Big Idea: Acceleration tells us how fast the speed of a body changes. A car that goes from standing still to fast in a few seconds has a big acceleration. A car that changes its speed slowly has a small acceleration. When a body slows down, we say it has a negative acceleration, or that it is decelerating.
By the end of this lesson you will be able to:
- say in your own words what acceleration means;
- use the formula a = (v - v0) / t;
- give the SI unit of acceleration, m/s2, and read it out loud;
- tell accelerated (speeding up) motion from decelerated (slowing down) motion;
- solve simple problems and find how fast a speed is changing.