PhET Energy Skate Park Lab - Part I

What is your last name?

1. What type of energy does the skater have at the 2-meter mark?

2. How high does the skater get on the other end of the ramp?

3. Explain, in terms of the conservation of energy, why the skater will never go higher than your answer to question 2 at this point.

4.a. If you were to place the skater at the 5-meter mark, how high would the skater go on the other side of the track? Write your prediction, then try it and state whether it matched your prediction or not and, if not, what happened instead.

4.b. Why doesn’t the skater stop moving? Justify your answer.

11. Describe the skater’s kinetic energy at the bottom of the ramp.

12. Describe the skater’s potential energy at the bottom of the ramp.

13. What happens to the types of energy when the skater is dropped in the air to fall on to the ramp from above? (Hint: look at the bar graph.)

14. What happens to the total energy when the skater is dropped in the air to fall on to the ramp from above? (Again, look at the bar graph.)