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Weightlessness
Eighth graders study weight, force and mass as it pertains to the earths pull. In this weightlessness lesson students are divided into groups and complete an activity.
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Fundamental Terms
Students explore Newton's Laws of Motion and how they apply to flight.
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Pine Wood Derby Prompt
Eighth graders use Newton's Laws of Motion to assist a troop in making a winning car in the Pine Wood Derby.
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Swinging on a String
Students explore how pendulums work and why they are useful in everyday applications. In a hands-on activity, they experiment with string length, pendulum weight and angle of release.
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Swinging
Pupils examine and modify a swinging apparatus. They describe the motion of an object by its position, direction of motion, and speed. Students measure motion using a graph.
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Hlf-Ball
Students investigate Newton's Laws of Motion and the Law of Conservation of Energy. They examine how a ball and half-ball behave and relate these laws to what happens to the ball. Students produce a graph of the data collected and...
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Wheelies
Students design wheels for a coaster car to travel varying terrain. In this motion and friction lesson, students discuss friction and motion and test wooden wheels on a track. Students then brainstorm how to increase friction and bring...
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Airplanes
Fourth graders experiment with gravity and lift by building paper airplanes. In this physics instructional activity, 4th graders compare the falling rate of a crumpled vs. flat sheet of paper. Then after class discussion and...
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Challenger's Lost Lessons - The Lost Simple Machines Lesson
Students investigate the characteristics of simple machines. In this simple machine instructional activity, students investigate work as a product of applying constant force. They answer questions about what happens on Earth and what may...
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Electricity and Magnetism
Fourth graders compare electricity and magnetism. In this science lesson, 4th graders discuss the concepts of electricity and magnetism and brainstorm examples of electrical and magnetic forces.
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Amusement Park Physics
Students get up close and personal with principles of motion. In this physics lesson plan, students collect and analyze acceleration data on amusement park rides. Students use CBLs to collect data in this lesson plan.
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"Go-Car" Lab
Students construct a car based on directions given. In this physics lesson, students calculate average speed using distance and time information. They collect data and create a graph of distance vs. time.
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Superball Physics
Eighth graders bounce superballs and measure to see if they can hit the same spot over and over. In this superball lesson plan, 8th graders calculate the weight of the ball with the force of the throw to try and hit the same spot with...
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Wonders of Weather
Students understand the destructive force of a tornado. They learn the role of a thunderstorm in the creation of a tornado.
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Changes in Force, Motion, and Energy
Eighth graders construct various machines and compare the work done by them.
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Origami Flight: The Physical Setting
Sixth graders investigate the forces that move certain objects. In this physics lesson, 6th graders design and create paper flying objects using origami methods, which they practice flying in different conditions. Students...
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Vectors: Follow That Arrow
Vectors and their connection to motion. A video will be presented to provide information for the class to use methods of solving vectors with and without grids. Real-world physical concepts will be explored in reference to vectors.
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Water and Ice
Students investigate how water goes from a solid to a liquid then back again. In this experimental lesson students conduct their own experiment and see how water changes form.
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Typical Numeric Questions for Physics I - Magnetism
Most of these questions are actually not numeric in nature as the title indicates, but they are pertinent to a high school physics curriculum covering magnetic fields. Young scientists must be adept at handling the right hand rule in...
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Friction: Friend or Foe?
Using a hands-on approach, learners explore the effect of friction on objects. Learners use toy cars, shoes, wood, metal, and more to experiment with the causes and effects of friction. Afterwards, they conduct experiments in which they...
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Physics Rules and S.I. Units Game
For this physics rules worksheet, students complete questions and answers in order to review physics rules with each other. Students complete 26 questions.
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Motion in a Circle
Students explore uniform circular motion, and the relation of its frequency of N revolutions/sec with the peripheral velocity v and with the rotation period T. They examine how uniform circular motion is a type of accelerated motion.
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Motion in a Circle
Students study about deriving centripetal acceleration for motion at constant speed around a circle.
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How Do Airplanes Stay off the Ground?
Young scholars use balloons and string to duplicate Bernoulli's Principle of wing shape and its affect on liftoff.