Ben, Biana, Samantha 8-1

Acceleration Word Problem

1. Scenario with citations

A 14 year old named Spencer is going against a 16 year old5 named Liza at the 10th annual

water bottle flipping competition in Boston, Massachusetts. Liza is using an Aquafina2 water

bottle that has a mass of 40 grams5, unless it is being triple flipped, when a gram of water could

fly out. Spencer is using a Poland Springs water bottle that has a mass of 45 grams5. Spencer

flips the bottle without any prior movement, making the bottle go 4 meters high in 2 seconds,

and then lands on its cap3. Liza flips the bottle 6 meters high in 4 seconds, but as the bottle is

coming down, it slows it’s fall1 after hitting the ceiling, and falls at 1 m/s. The time that it takes

the bottle to fall is half the time it took to reach the ceiling.

2. Scenario without Citations

A 14 year old named Spencer is going against a 16 year old named Liza at the 10th annual

water bottle flipping competition in Boston, Massachusetts. Liza is using an Aquafina water

bottle that has a mass of 40 grams, unless it is being triple flipped, when a gram of water could

fly out. Spencer is using a Poland Springs water bottle that has a mass of 45 grams. Spencer

flips the bottle without any prior movement, making the bottle go 4 meters high in 2 seconds,

and then lands on its cap. Liza flips the bottle 6 meters high in 4 seconds, but as the bottle is

coming down, it slows it’s fall after hitting the ceiling, and falls at 1 m/s.

3. Questions for the Readers:

1. What is another term for negative acceleration and provide an example of it in the article

provided.
 2. Which water bottle in the article provided has a greater rate of acceleration as

compared to the other water bottle? Provide evidence to support your answer

3. What term and/or phrase did the writer use in the article to imply that a water bottle is

at rest, as in it’s not moving?

4. What 2 pieces of information did the writer include in the article that are irrelevant

and/or misleading to the reader, as in they are not useful in calculating either speed or

acceleration?

4. Image to Accompany Text in Newspaper Article

5. Screenshot of the Newspaper Article

6. Answer Key for the Questions for the Readers:

What is another term for negative acceleration and provide an example of it in the article

provided. Another term for negative acceleration is deceleration and an example of this is

when the water bottle hits the ceiling which slows it’s fall.

Which water bottle in the article provided has a greater rate of acceleration as compared to the

other water bottle? Provide evidence to support your answer

Spencer’s water bottle has a greater acceleration compared to Liza’s water bottle

because Spencer’s water bottle has an acceleration rate of 1 m/s2 while Liza’s water

bottle only has an acceleration rate of 0.083 m/s2.

Liza: Speed: 6 meters/ 4 seconds= 1.5 m/s

Liza: 1.5 m/s- 1 m/s / 6 seconds= 0.083 m/s2

Spencer: Speed: 4 meters/ 2 seconds= 2 m/s

Spencer: 2 m/s- 0 m/s / 2 s = 1 m/s2

What term and/or phrase did the writer use in the article to imply that a water bottle is at rest, as

in it’s not moving?

A term used in the article to represent at rest is when the bottle lands on its cap and uses

no prior swing power to flip the bottle.

What 2 pieces of information did the writer include in the article that are irrelevant and/or

misleading to the reader, as in they are not useful in calculating either speed or acceleration?

2 pieces of information that we used to mislead the readers was saying that the mass of

the Aquafina water bottle was 40 grams, the poland springs water bottle had a mass of 45

grams. Also the ages of the contestants which is Liza is 16 years old and Spencer is 14

years old.