Beacon Learning Center
Beacon Learning Center: Simple Machines Made Simple
The six types of simple machines are explained clearly through pictures, text and videos.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Splash, Pop, Fizz: Rube Goldberg Machines
Refreshed with an understanding of the six simple machines; screw, wedge, pully, incline plane, wheel and axle, and lever, student groups receive materials and an allotted amount of time to act as mechanical engineers to design and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: A Simple Solution for the Circus
In this activity, students are challenged to design a contraption using simple machines to move a circus elephant into a rail car. After students consider their audience and constraints, they work in groups to brainstorm ideas and select...
Read Works
Read Works: Machines Can Move
[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about simple machines people use every day. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Simple Machines and How to Use This Tutorial
There are six simple machines. They are as follows: lever, wheel, pulley, incline plane, wedge, and screw. This tutorial will cover the first three.
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Simple Machines: Lesson 2
This lesson will introduce the six types of simple machines and show how machines can increase efficiency by reducing work input needed. It is 2 of 2 in the series titled "Simple Machines."
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Simple Machines: Lesson 1
This lesson will introduce the six types of simple machines and show how machines can increase efficiency by reducing work input needed. It is 1 of 2 in the series titled "Simple Machines."
abcteach
Abcteach: Science: Simple Machines
[Free Registration/Login Required] A collection of ready-to-go worksheets and diagrams of simple machines.
Science Struck
Science Struck: Simple Machines for Kids
Gives short descriptions of the six types of simple machines.
The Franklin Institute
Spotlighting Simple Machines
Simple machines such as inclined planes in wedges and screws are explained.
Science and Mathematics Initiative for Learning Enhancement (SMILE)
Smile: Simple Machines (Grades 1 To12)
In this lesson plan students start by trying to open a paint can with their bare hands. Eventually, they will use a lever to open it. Various activities are used to enforce different simple machines.
Ducksters
Ducksters: Physics for Kids: Simple Machines
Kids learn about the science behind simple machines such as levers, wheels, pulleys, inclined planes, and screws. How they work together to make complex machinery.
NASA
Nasa: Simple Machines
A lesson plan site that contains activities designed to give grades 3 and 4 experiences in using simple machines.
Integrated Publishing
Integrated Publishing: Levers
A quite lengthy chapter on the simple machine the lever. Includes uses, classes, mechanical advantage, formulae, etc. A full discussion, with good illustrations.
Other
D&t Online: Levers
This site illustrates different classes of levers that are used in simple machines.
CK-12 Foundation
Ck 12: Plix: Simple Machines: Lever
[Free Registration/Login Required] Drag the labels to identify the different parts of the wheelbarrow as parts in a lever.
CK-12 Foundation
Ck 12: Plix: Simple Machines: Lever
[Free Registration/Login Required] Drag the labeled triangles to indicate where the fulcrum of this third-class lever is as well as the input and output forces.
Read Works
Read Works: Machines Can Move!
[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about simple machines used in daily life such as: a pulley, a screw, an inclined plane, a wheel and axle, a wedge, and a lever. A question sheet is available to help students build...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Levers Weight Lifters
During this lesson, students will have the opportunity to explore levers through hands-on experiences and by navigating the Internet. This lesson allows students to use their experiences to determine how levers and other simple machines...
Utah Education Network
Uen: Force, Energy, and Motion: Complex Machines for Simple Tasks!
Designed for Grade Eight, this collection of lessons provides information, examples and quizzes related to simple machines. Elementary students studying this topic will find this site informative as well.
ClassFlow
Class Flow: Simple Machines Quiz
[Free Registration/Login Required] This flipchart consists of a humorous quiz on identifying simple machines and forces of motion such as gravity and inertia.
Museum of Science
Museum of Science and Industry: Online Science: Build a Lever
Step-by-step illustrated instructions for an experiment investigating how a lever works. An explanation of the science involved is given at the end.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Modern Day Pyramids
Students investigate the ways in which ancient technologies - six types of simple machines and combinations - are used to construct modern buildings. As they work together to solve a design problem (designing and building a modern...
Scholastic
Scholastic: Dirtmeister's Science Reporters: The Lever
This site provides a description of the lever and its many uses.