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Physics Classroom is making strides to make our site accessible to everyone. Our site contains 6 navigation areas. The Primary, Secondary, and Page Level navigations have a screen reader version of their nav structure that allows using the left and right keys to navigate sibling navigation items, and up or down keys to navigate parent or child navigation items. The others can be navigated using tabs. The Primary Navigation handles the first 2 levels of site pages. The Secondary (which is not always available) handles the 3rd and 4th level of structure. The Page level navigation allows you to navigate the current page's headings quickly. The Header Navigation contains the Light/Dark Mode toggle, Search, Notifications and account login. The Breadcrumb Navigation contains the breadcrumb of the current page. If the current page has a breadcrumb, you can get to it by skipping to the content and tabbing in reverse (shift plus tab). The Footer Navigation contains links such as Privacy, Contact, about and terms. Some resources contain an Audio Player that can be activated by holding down the T key for 3 seconds, and then using K to pause and resume. While not every area of Physics Classroom is usable purely from keyboard and screen reader, we are committed to continue work on making this possible. If you have questions or need additional help, please use this link to contact us.

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Home Concept Builders Work and Energy What's Up (and Down) with KE and PE?

What's Up (and Down) with KE and PE?

The What's Up (and Down) with KE and PE Concept Builder is a tool that challenges the learner to use an understanding of kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy in order to analyze a physical situation and to determine if the KE and the PE increases, decreases, or remains the same. Learners must read carefully, looking for verbal cues within the problem in order to determine what is occuring to the KE and the PE over the course of the motion. There are 12 different situations to analyze and three ability levels. Each situation requires that the learner use an understanding of kinetic energy, gravitational potential energy, and elastic potential energy in order to identify the form(s) of mechanical energy that the object possesses. Question-specific help is provided for each of the 12 situations. Use of this Concept Builder with our Task Tracker system allows teachers to track student progress.

Users are encouraged to open the Concept Builder and begin. There is no need for an activity sheet for this Concept Builder.

Learners and Instructors may also be interested in viewing the accompanying Notes page. Technical information, teaching suggestions, and related resources that complement this Interactive are provided on the View Notes.

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