Motion Graph Matchmakers

This activity is intended to help interpret the overall shapes of displacement vs time and velocity vs time graphs.

Making connections between d vs t and v vs t graphs is one of the most challenging concepts for my students and this activity does a great job of pushing their understanding.

This task now has a virtual version to make it possible in Online or Hybrid learning environments!

Jump to Motion Graph Matchmakers - Virtual

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The Cards

The files below contain 16 pairs of d vs t and v vs t graph for a total of 32 cards printed four to a page

To make it quicker to differentiate between the two different types of graphs, I printed the displacement vs time graphs on blue paper and the velocity vs time graphs on pink paper. I have also posted a version of the file that has the graph in different colors if you have access to a color printer instead.

Graphs print 4 to a page

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The Activities

There are several ways to use these motion graph cards. Here are some of the activities that I found success with so far.

Matchmakers - Pass out the cards to all students in the class and challenge them to find another graph that describes the same motion. When students feel like they have located their match I have them come up to me as a pair to check their work. If they have it correct, I have them explain to me how they know they are a match and then they get to sit down. If it is not correct, I locate a feature of their graphs that disproves their theory and they return to the pool of students. If there are less than 32 students in the class, I just place the extra cards on a table somewhere so they know that they might have to find their match over there instead of someone else's hand.

Four Corners (Stand Up/Sit Down) - Once everyone in the class has a card, I ask them a series of questions to organize themselves by. According to the answers, students could either be asked to stand in a different part of the room or simply stand up/sit down as the question instructs.

Possible Questions:

• Does your graph represent an object moving in the positive direction? (or negative, changing directions, not at all, etc)
• Does your graph represent an object that is accelerating? (or constant velocity, or not moving)
• Does your graph represent something that is slowing down? (or speeding up, both, etc.)

Card Sort - Provide all 32 cards to a group to pair up or sort into groups as they see fit.

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Downloadable Files

Motion Graph Matchmakers (pdf)
File Size:	33 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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Motion Graph Matchmakers (editable)
File Size:	59 kb
File Type:	pptx

Download File

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Motion Graph Matchmakers - Color (pdf)
File Size:	31 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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Motion Graph Matchmakers - Color (editable)
File Size:	59 kb
File Type:	pptx

Download File

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Solutions

Motion Graph Matchmakers - Solutions (pdf)
File Size:	31 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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Virtual Card Sort

In an effort to make this activity accessible for online learners, I have created a Desmos card sort out of these graphs. In the card sort, students go through a progression of questions that require them to notice certain features about the graphs and how they are connected to the motion that they are depicting.

I made a couple of different versions so that I could use this with my general level 9th grade physical science classes as well as my 12th grade IB Physics classes. The main difference is that the "basic" version only contains graphs representing constant velocity, and speeding up/slowing down in the positive direction.

Matchmakers - Basic

Matchmakers - Advanced

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More Motion Graph Activities

Graphing Motion Walk Around
20 graphing questions to check understanding of finding displacement, velocity, and acceleration from motion graphs. All posters correspond to a google form with data validation to check answers in real time

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Click for more Motion resources ​⬇