CK-12 Physical Science Concepts - For Middle School

4.5 Position-Time Graphs

FIGURE 4.6

is zero and so is the velocity. The position of the object is not changing. The steeper the line is, the greater the slope
of the line is and the faster the object’s motion is changing.

FIGURE 4.7

Calculating Average Velocity from a Position-Time Graph

It’s easy to calculate the average velocity of a moving object from a position-time graph.Average velocityequals
the change in position (represented by∆d) divided by the corresponding change in time (represented by∆t):

velocity=

∆d

∆t

For example, in Graph 2 in theFigure4.7, the average velocity between 0 seconds and 5 seconds is: