Impact Event Analysis – Application of Newton’s Laws and Wave Physics

Milestone Summary:  You will choose an actual impact event coupled with a wave phenomenon to analyze.  The event should be based on a real-world example or everyday occurrence (see samples below).  Students will describe the event and give background data and information on it.  They will educate their audience on the physics behind their event and the importance of learning more about it. 

Milestone Purpose:  Physics is all around us!  This milestone will allow you to apply your course content to a real-world event that affects people in your own community and around the world.  You will analyze and explain the physics behind your event.  In so doing, you will strengthen your knowledge base, critical thinking, and problem solving skills. 

Milestone Topic:  You can choose from the following categories of events to analyze.  NOTE:  if it is an earthquake or tsunami, then it needs to be a real current or historical example and you must describe what causes them, how they are measured for magnitude and intensity, and describe seismic waves.

• An earthquake and/or a tsunami
• A car crash (or object crashing into something with speed)
• A physical sports injury resulting from a collision (ex. football or boxing)
• An everyday task like shopping (ex. pushing a shopping cart, throwing or dropping something)
• An everyday fun activity like dancing (ex. falling down while dancing or slamming into someone)
• A falling object (ex. skydiver or part of a building collapsing)

NOTE:  for the wave portion of your event – you could always talk about doing something while listening to music (which involves sounds waves).  For instance, sports, shopping, dancing, etc.

Structure:  Students will create a 4-5 page research paper.  Follow the Formatting Guide Provided in D2L.

Make sure your project adheres to the following criteria:

• Separate title and references pages (doesn’t count in length)
• Length = NO LESS THAN 4 PAGES (not including title, refs, pics)! 
• References = No LESS than 3 outside professional references (cited in APA style)
• Use your own words = No large quotes or cutting/pasting of text will be acceptable! 
• Papers = default font types and sizes, with 1-inch margins, and double spaced.  Submit as WORD doc or as pdf document. If you have a Mac, please make the conversion from Mac to one of these formats.