On the street outside my house leaves are being swirled into piles against the railings that guard the light-well for our basement.  In other streets, not graced by trees, discarded packaging from take-away meals eaten in the street is being blown around eluding the best efforts of the city’s refuse collectors.  This phenomenon is an ‘everyday experience’ for the vast majority of people although the content of the wind-blown detritus may vary depending on where you live.  It is not difficult to reproduce similar conditions in the classroom using the contents of the recycling bin and to use the motion of sheets of paper, screwed up balls of paper and paper airplanes to discuss the kinematics of motion and the limitations of its assumptions, i.e. that the geometry of an object has no influence on its motion, which restricts the cases we can consider using kinematics.  Think particles with mass but negligible size and shape plus objects that can be approximated in this way.  The 5E lesson plan attached below expands on this theme for instructors interested in using this Everyday Example.

5EplanNoD1_rectilinear&curvilinear_motion

For more on 5E lesson plans see: my post entitled ‘Disease of the modern age’ on June 26th, 2013 and ‘Sizzling Sausages’ on July 3^rd, 2013.

If you want more on kinematics try: http://www.khanacademy.org/science/physics/one-dimensional-motion