Here are a few questions you should find easy to answer:
(1) Geraldine stands on a chair holding a big rock and a smaller rock, both at the same height. She drops both rocks at the same moment. Which one reaches the floor first? Which is going faster when it reaches the floor? Which has more kinetic energy just before it reaches the floor? From where did that kinetic energy come? Which rock makes more noise, probably, when it hits the floor, and why (thinking in terms of energy)?
(2) If we drop a basketball from a height of one meter onto a nice wooden floor, it bounces back up to a height of less than one meter (why less?). If we let it keep bouncing, it rises to lower and lower heights on each bounce. By contrast, a basketball player can keep dribbling the ball, with it rising to a height of about one meter over and over again. Explain this in terms of energy. Then consider a basketball player who is now dribbling the ball with his hand at a height of one-half meter, who decides that he wants to dribble the ball with his hand at a height of one meter from the floor. What must he do?
(3) Think about that basketball we dropped, and how it bounces to lower and lower heights. Is the time interval between bounces increasing, decreasing, or staying the same?
(4) Angela invites her friends over for an evening of dancing once in January and once in July. If her house is heated in the winter and air-conditioned in the summer, does this party tend to increase or to decrease her utility bill for January? for July?
(5) We start with a marble one meter from the end of a ramp, the bottom of which is on a table top. The marble rolls down the ramp, along the table, and off into the air; it lands one meter from the edge of the table. Now, suppose we start with the same marble, still one meter from the end of the ramp, but now we tilt the ramp more steeply. When the marble rolls off the table, will it land nearer to, farther from. or the same distance from the end of the table? Would it be possible to start the marble 1.5 meters from the end of the ramp, and have it land the same distance from the end of the table as it did in the first case? If not, why not? If so, how can we accomplish this?