How does the unit used to measure acceleration actually work?

Question

The unit to measure speed is m/s which in a straightforward manner implies that x metres is covered per second however the unit for acceleration is m/s^2 which is kind of making it difficult to understand how it works..

I had this thought in the middle of a physics test and have been pondering ever since. Would be great if someone could eli5.

In: Physics

Answer 1

Acceleration is a change in velocity (very similar to speed). If you speed up from from 0 m/s to 1 m/s in one second, then you’ve accelerated (1 m/s) *per second*.

So if you were accelerating at 10 m/s *per second* for 10 seconds, you’d wind up traveling at 100 m/s by the end.