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Pendulum Energy Model Documents

This material has 4 associated documents. Select a document title to view a document's information.

Main Document

Pendulum Energy Model 

written by Wolfgang Christian, Mario Belloni, and Anne Cox
content provider: Barbara Christian

This is a standards-based simulation for grade level 6-9, developed to help students visualize how total energy is conserved in a simple pendulum. It depicts a child swinging on a swing suspended from a stationary point. Students can drag the swing to different heights, then activate the motion. As the swing moves in periodic motion, energy bar graphs are simultaneously displayed that show changing levels of kinetic and potential energy. The simulation is accompanied by a lesson plan and printable student activity guide.

This item was created with Easy Java Simulations (EJS), a modeling tool that allows users without formal programming experience to generate computer models and simulations. To run the simulation, simply click the Java Archive file below. To modify or customize the model, See Related Materials for detailed instructions on installing and running the EJS Modeling and Authoring Tool.

Last Modified June 11, 2014

This file has previous versions.

Supplemental Documents (2)

Pendulum Energy Model: Student Version 

EJS Pendulum Energy Model: Student Version is a simulation for physical science (middle and high) school students. It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive.  Double clicking the ejs_middle_school_PendulumEnergy.jar file will run the program if Java is installed.

Published June 17, 2009
Last Modified December 17, 2009

This file has previous versions.

Pendulum Energy Model: Lesson Plan 

A pdf file with a teacher lesson plan for use with the Pendulum Energy Model.

Published June 17, 2009
Last Modified June 17, 2009

This file is included in the full-text index.

Source Code Documents

Pendulum Energy Source Code 

The source code zip archive contains an XML representation of the Pendulum Energy Model.  Unzip this archive in your Ejs workspace to compile and run this model using Ejs.

Published June 17, 2009
Last Modified June 17, 2009