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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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Spuds in Space
Students explore the effects of velocity on an object when it collides with another object. They design and outfit a potato astronaut in a spacesuit to withstand the hazards of high velocity impacts from space debris and meteoroids.
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Tree House Escape!
Students participate in a role play in which they use simple machines to do the work of retrieving their sibling from a tree which lost its ladder. They investigate how work is accomplished when an object moves in the direction of the...
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Stick-Slip Movement
Ninth graders operate a model to observe the type of motion that occurs at a fault during an earthquake. They explore the effects of several variables. Students measure movement, calculate averages and plot and graph information.
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Electrostatics
Students examine ways positive and negative charges are attracted and repelled by watching teacher demonstrations, and complete activity sheet related to classroom demonstration activities to prove proficiency of knowledge of...
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Mass, Volume, and Weight
Students explore mass, volume, and weight. In this science and measurement lesson, students compare volume, mass, and weight after listening to the teacher's description of each. Students explore different scales and balances and...
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Simple Machines
Third graders are introduced to the six types of simple machines and discover how they make tasks easier. In groups, they rotate between stations to experiment with the different types of simple machines. To end the lesson, they make a...
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Friction Restriction: Creating a Design Plan to Redesign the Tread of Tennis Sneakers to Increase Friction
Students evaluate the friction of tennis sneakers and redesign them to increase friction. In this physics instructional activity, students calculate starting, sideways and forward stopping friction. Using quantitative data, they prove...
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Newton and his Laws
Students explore Newton's laws, including what they state, and what the intuitive meaning is of the first and third laws.
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Newton's Second Law
Students examine how physical quantities and laws depend distance, mass and time. They examine the MKS system; meter, kilogram and second, for doing calculations.
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Exploring Simple Machines
Students investigate simple machines. In this simple machines activity, students study how simple machines work. Students determine the function of various simple machines.
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Keep It Hot
Students design and conduct an experiment to explore the insulating abilities of different materials for keeping a liquid in a paper cup warm. A small group of lab partners test four different materials: black paper, white paper,...
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Mini-labs on Newton's Laws
Students are divided into 6 groups with each group rotating to a different lab. The labs can be run over the course of a few days; or spread out for a longer period of time.
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Working in Space
Students design and build one of three engineering problems dealing with living and working in space.
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Electric Circuits
Students model the flow of electrons in a circuit, draw diagrams of an electric circuit and build an electric circuit. Students explain how to tell when the path of an electric circuit is complete, and test the conductivity of a variety...
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What To Do After The Hands-Are-On
Learners perform various demonstrations for each of Newton's Laws, collect data, and write a conclusion for each.
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Weightlessness
Students compare and contrast the terms "weight" and "mass". In this physics lesson, students observe an experiment in which objects are placed on a balance scale and weighed under different circumstances. Partners drop items and observe...
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How Far?
Students explore how different textures provide varying amounts of friction to objects moving across them. They build a tool to measure the amount of friction between a note card and various surfaces by measuring the distance that a...
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More Power to You
Students construct a simple galvanometer in order to detect the presence of an electric current as well as determine the amount of the current. Activity is divided into two parts, first part as group work and second as individual.
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Calibrating a Roverbot
Learners build and program a Lego Mindstorms Roverbot to travel for a given amount of time. They gather data on time versus distance traveled to determine a calibration constant for their robot, which relates time to distance.
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Building and Launching Rocket Kits
Pupils, in groups, build and decorate rocket kits and then launch them.
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Tractor Construction
Students working in small groups will build tractors. They must design a tractor that is able to pull various weights.
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Fast Cars and Roll-Over
Students creat a ramp using cardboard and tape. They follow directions to perform an experiment to determine the degree of tilt needed to cause an empty milk carton to tip over. Students discuss their results in terms of center of gravity.
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Weight and Velocity
Students perform an experiment in order to determine how increasing weight affects the velocity of a truck and use the computer to compile their data.