How many of your pupils play an instrument? A musical science lesson will help all of them understand how string instruments work. Young scientists construct a string-and-pulley system to test frequency and pitch. The lesson...

The sound waves of thunder are made when lightning very quickly heats the air surrounding it, expanding faster than the speed of sound. Learners explore waves through their own movement of string or set waves to constantly oscillate....

Students investigate cohesion, adhesion and surface tension through observations and lab experiments. In this cohesion, adhesion and surface tension lesson plan, students rotate to 5 stations around the room and experiment at each...

This wave and electromagnetism assignment is so thorough, it could be used as a unit exam. The first section of it covers wave concepts. The next section addresses static electricity. There is a section that deals with electric circuits....

Bridges rely on tension and compression to keep them standing. Pairs test this principle by constructing simple bridges and applying a force to the center. Teams use the provided worksheet to record their observations of the...

Stretch your teaching repertoire with an experiment on the elongation (stretching) and failure (break) of several materials. The point of the experiment is to design a composite material for chair webbing.

A total of 29 word problems furnish practice in solving for work, energy, and force. A few of the questions display diagrams to help learners visualize the systems, and all of them list five choices from which they select the correct...

Students experience the forces of tension and compression by manipulating objects that are strong in each but not in both. Students construct a simple model of a beam bridge.

Students explore the forces of tension and compression by manipulating a variety of objects, and apply what they learned in the construction of a model bridge.

Fourth graders investigate pitches of sound.  In this physical science lesson, 4th graders participate in two activities that help them explore pitch--one activity has them working with string telephones and the amount of tension...

Students examine the qualities of Baroque style by viewing a video about Bach. They listen to music of the era and explore the characteristics of excessive ornamentation, contrast and tension. They complete the included worksheets.

The tension of the 236 strings in a grand piano exert a combined force of 20 tons on the cast iron frame. The presentation includes topics such as work, forms of energy, conservation of energy, gravitational and elastic potential energy,...

Students explain the concepts of tension and compression, and then state the purpose of suspension bridges. They also study some of the most famous suspension bridges in North America.

Students do a series of three experiments. In the first experiment, the students work with a partner to protect an egg from a 12 foot drop. In the second experiment, the students investigate static electricity using balloons and yarn. ...

Students learn how cold and warm water behave in the marine environment due to convection currents. Students also conduct an experiment to demonstrate the formation of a convection current.

Students examine tension and compression by manipulating objects that are strong in each but not in both. Students apply their observations to the construction of a model of a beam bridge, suspension bridge, and inverted triangle...

Preparing for an AP test is about more than bubble sheets and memorization. The two activities in this resource require a direct application of skills learned throughout an AP Physics course.

Future engineers create robotic arms like those on rovers built by NASA in the second lesson of the series. They test their devices by attempting to pick up and move cups to a specified location.

Learners work in teams to solve a variety of challenges involving water. They move an ice cube from one glass to another without touching the ice or the glass. They move water from one glass to another and they estimate the number of...

Young scholars view examples of suspension bridges and discuss their structure. They complete a tension and compression experiment with a partner then perform a similar experiment with books. They discuss engineers and how they design...

This engineering activity gets youngsters working together to design and construct a bridge. Each bridge is tested in front of the class to discover how much weight it can hold before showing any change in form. The lesson plan does not...

In this frequency activity, students use the speed of sound to determine the frequency in which sounds are heard in 5 different word problems.

Pupils use working models to show the stress and strain in the movements in the earth's crust.  In this stress activity students complete a lab in which they construct a model. 

In this harmonic waves activity, students review the characteristics of harmonic traveling waves by solving 5 different problems.