It's About Time
Circular Motion
Lead your class in this exciting activity to learn more about motion and its importance. Pupils learn about a centripetal and why it is required to maintain a constant speed in a circulating moving mass. They apply the equation for...
MENSA Education & Research Foundation
Roller Coaster Mania!
Raise the energy level of your physical science class with this exciting hands-on activity. Applying their knowledge of kinetic and potential energy and Newton's laws of motion, young engineers use foam tubing and marbles to create...
Teach Engineering
The Great Gravity Escape
Groups simulate an orbit using a piece of string and a water balloon. Individuals spin in a circular path and calculate the balloon's velocity when the clothes pin can no longer hold onto the balloon.
NASA
Egg Drop Lander
You have to crack a few eggs to make a good engineer! Working in small groups, young scholars design, build, and test devices that protect an egg from breaking when dropped from a ladder.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Varying Motion
For this secondary mathematics learning exercise, high schoolers collect data based on a person’s motion. From this data, students create graphs comparing displacement, velocity, and acceleration to time. The five-page learning exercise...
Exploratorium
Momentum Machine
If you have a rotating office chair in your classroom, you can have physics pupils participate in this simple, yet effective demonstration of angular momentum. One partner sits in the chair, arms outstretched, holding heavy weights. The...
Curated OER
Reel Projects
Students investigate projectile motion. In this projectile motion lesson, students investigate a website with an interactive lesson. Students view the changes in the projectile they see in the lesson. Students watch short video clips and...
New Mexico State University
Lab 6: Kepler's Laws
A 15-page package thoroughly teaches your physics or astronomy learners about Kepler's three laws of planetary motion. Each one is stated and explained. Class members answer questions, solve problems, and participate in the classic...
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Graphing Motion: Instantaneous and Average Speed
Students are introduced to the calculator as a graphing tool and distinguish between average speed and instantaneous speed.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Projectile Motion
Students are introduced to the concept of projectile motion, of which they are often familiar from life experiences,such as playing sports such as basketball or baseball, even though they may not understand the physics involved. Students...
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Graphing Your Motion
In this activity, students use a Motion Detector to measure distance and velocity. Students prepare graphs of motion and analyze them. They compare and match graphs of distance versus time and velocity versus time.
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Vernier a Speedy Slide With Easy Data App and Cbr 2
Students can use a CBR 2 motion detector to determine their speed or velocity going down a playground slide. They will also experiment with different ways to increase their speed going down the slide.
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Need for Speed Adventure 2
Students use a radio controlled car and weights to record the time of each run and determine velocity. They represent motion graphically and determine the relationship between speed, time, and weight. Students create and interpret...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Distance and Speed of Rolling Objects
This project is an experiment in classical physics. You'll be following in Galileo's footsteps, and investigating Newton's laws of motion, but you'll be taking advantage of modern video recording technology to make your measurements. The...
Physics Aviary
Physics Aviary: Graphing Motion Problem Level 4
Find out the instantaneous velocity based on a position vs. time graph.
Physics Aviary
Physics Aviary: Graphing Motion Problem Level 1 Part 2
Students are finding the relative velocity between two objects using a position vs. time graph.
Physics Aviary
Physics Aviary: Graphing Motion Problem Level 1
Students are finding the velocities of objects based on the position vs. time graphs they create.
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: What's Your Speed?
In this activity, students' will use a motion detector to determine what effect the speed at which a person moves has on the appearance of the distance versus time plot.
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Velocity
This activity will test a student's understanding of the relationships between location and motion as pertaining to time.
Middle School Science
Middle School Science: Motion Notes
Personal site in which a teacher outlines a unit on motion. Probes through topics such as average speed, velocity, acceleration, speed, deceleration, force and more.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Analyzing the Motion of a Marble Down a Ramp
This lab activity involves rolling a marble down a ramp where the students can investigate constant acceleration motion. The students then make a position vs. time graph and a velocity vs. time graph in order to investigate the change in...
Physics Aviary
Physics Aviary: Graphing Motion Problem Level 3
Find the displacement of an object just by looking at the velocity vs. time graph. This graph will have at least one negative region and one positive region.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Super Spinners!
Use this hands-on activity to demonstrate rotational inertia, rotational speed, angular momentum, and velocity. Students build at least two simple spinners to conduct experiments with different mass distributions and shapes, as they...
University of Oregon
Uo: Cannon Simulator: Experimental Instructions
This virtual experiment is designed to let the student measure the relation between muzzle velocity (which determines projectile energy), gravitational potential and the effects of frictional drag caused by wind speed blowing opposite to...