Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Newton's Second Law: How Does Acceleration Change With Varying Forces?
In this lab activity, students investigate the effects of changing force on the acceleration of a lab cart testing Newton's Second Law of Motion. They will use distance and time to calculate velocity and create a graph representing their...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Newton's Second: Having a Ball With Motion
Students will create a gravity ball launcher to demonstrate their understanding of mass, force, momentum, and motion. The students will use critical thinking, measurement, and observation and analysis of data to make changes and improve...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Inertia: An Object in Motion Will Tend to Stay in Motion
This activity is a take off of Galileo's experiment with the inclined planes to show that an object in motion would stay in a straight line motion if no outside forces acted were acting on it. In this version, students will roll a ball...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Centripetal Force Activity
In this physics activity, students will simulate a race car on a circular track. Velocity, acceleration, and force vectors will be analyzed at various places along the track. As the students progress in the activity, prompts for student...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Visualizing Molecules in Motion
In this lab, students will explore the motion of molecules, the forces involved in making them move and predict the level of interaction that molecules can have in order to better understand chemical reactions.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Investigating Projectile Motion: Creating a Catapult
This lesson is for 9th grade physical science students. It begins with an inquiry-based lesson using a projectile motion computer simulation. It culminates with students building a catapult; applying and connecting science knowledge from...
Utah Education Network
Uen: Rock a Bye Pendulum
Activity uses scientific process to explore the effects of force on an object in motion.
SRI International
Performance Assessment Links in Science: Observing Objects
This is a performance task for Grade Four students where they observe two different pendulums and compare the two types of motion. The activity is designed for a lab setting where students work at individual stations. A rubric and...
Science and Mathematics Initiative for Learning Enhancement (SMILE)
Smile: Lab Activity: Tops
The Illinois Institute of Technology provides a lab activity on precession and spinning tops. Designed for primary grades, but easily adapted for any level. Includes directions and assessment ideas.
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Using Cbr in Egg Drop Competition
Egg drop competition is a popular activity to reinforce the lessons in force and motion. In the activity, the students are asked to design a vehicle to carry the egg safely when dropped from a height of 10 feet (about 3 m) or more....
Science Museum of Minnesota
Science Museum of Minnesota: Motion Machine
A lesson in which students design a machine that makes motion.
Middle School Science
Middle School Science: Motion Crossword Puzzle
Let your students have a little fun and reinforce their learning of motion-related concepts at the same time.
ClassFlow
Class Flow: Motion
[Free Registration/Login Required] This flipchart describes what motion is and what causes an object to move. Streamline videos, activities, and assessment are included.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Floating and Falling Flows
Students discover fluid dynamics related to buoyancy through experimentation and optional photography. Using one set of fluids, they make light fluids rise through denser fluids. Using another set, they make dense fluids sink through a...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: May the Magnetic Force Be With You
This lesson begins with a demonstration of the deflection of an electron beam. Students then review their knowledge of the cross product and the right hand rule with sample problems. After which, students study the magnetic force on a...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Mn Step: What Makes Things Move?
In this activity, young scholars will learn about push and pull forces that make things move. They will also practice using position words to describe location. To learn about forces, they will move objects, observe the movement of...
Utah STEM Foundation
Utah Stem Action Center: Push or Pull?
This super simple activity for kindergarten-age young scholars requires no materials and can be done inside or outside, or both and explores forces and motion.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Car Collision Testing & Tradeoffs: Don't Crack Humpty
Student groups are provided with a generic car base on which to design a device/enclosure to protect an egg as it rolls down a ramp at increasing slopes. During this activity, student teams design, build and test their prototype...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Bombs Away!
In this hands-on activity students learn create a device to protect a dropped egg and deliver it close to a target. Students learn about engineering as well as potential and kinetic energy and energy transfer
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: The Linear Force Relation for a Rubber Band
In this activity, students' will use a force sensor and a motion detector to study the relationship between the force applied to a rubber band and the distance to which it stretches. They will then model force versus strech data with a...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Sliding Textbooks
In this culminating activity of the unit which highlights how forces play a role in engineering design and material choices, students explore and apply their knowledge of forces, friction, acceleration, and gravity in a two-part experiment.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Flying With Style
As students begin to understand the physics behind thrust, drag, and gravity and how these relate these to Newton's three laws of motion, groups assemble and launch the rockets that they designed in the associated lesson.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Investigating Newton's 3rd Law: Coin Flick
In this elementary physics investigation, students explore Newton's 3rd Law of Motion: To every action there is an equal & opposite reaction. Pairs of students will line up 5 pennies, (touching each other), between 2 rulers. The row...
Other
Federal Aviation Administration: Anti Gravity Marble [Pdf]
This experiment examines Newton's Second Law of Motion. Learn how centrifugal and centripetal force help to keep a marble in a can when turned upside down.