A collection of mechanics activities. Many pertain to Newton's laws of motion. Step-by-step directions provided with illustrations. Great for teacher demos or student projects.

Students watch video clips from the October Sky and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone movies to see examples of projectile motion. Then they explore the relationships between displacement, velocity and acceleration, and calculate...

A unit on energy, force, and motion presented with interactive and classroom activities. Students gain an understanding of weight, mass, potential and kinetic energy, sound, and heat with this engaging resource.

A high school physics lab on classical mechanics in which young scholars study force versus time and acceleration versus time. Students need access to an elevator to complete the experiments. A lab handout is provided.

This resource provides reproducibles that aide in student learning of force and motion. Also offers hands-on and cooperative learning activity ideas as well as an ESL/ELD activity. This resource is in PDF form; requires Adobe Reader.

Young scholars investigate the effects of force on objects in motion particularly as it relates to gravity and wind resistance by performing a classroom egg-drop activity.

In this activity, teams of students build a car out of common materials which is then propelled by the release of air out of a balloon and must travel a minimum distance. The activity is then extended to a competition to build the car...

In this guided inquiry activity, students will use 2 marbles of different size and a box to investigate what makes the marbles move and what will cause the marbles to change speed and direction.

Students will be able to determine a way to change the direction of a moving object by conducting a simple experiment. Included in this lesson are videos of the activity in action, a printable recording sheet, pictures of the set-up for...

Three complete tutorials on vectors and two dimension forces and motion. Lessons include informational text, interactive activities, animations, and quick, interactive comprehension checks along the way.

What makes something start to move? What makes something stop moving or change direction? This hands-on lesson will show students that forces acting on an object have a strength and a direction that can be represented by arrows of...

[Free Registration/Login Required] This flipchart explains weight and gravity and engages students in activities using force and motion.

In this introduction to motion activity, young scholars will get a personal understanding of speed and acceleration by experiencing it firsthand. Wheeled office chairs or other cart like devices are used to give one student a ride as a...

What keeps you in your seat of a giant loop-de-loop roller coaster? Surprisingly, it is not the seatbelt but the seat. It works because of something called centripetal force and it does much more than make a great roller coaster. In this...

In this interactive activity featuring videos adapted from the Rutgers PAER Group, students will observe examples of circular motion. Students will then find a common reason why the objects and people presented move in a circle. Includes...

In this investigation, students will learn that speed, velocity, and changes in velocity are the result of the action of forces on objects such as friction. They will be able to explain how the force of friction opposes motion by...

Young scholars will have an opportunity to determine what makes everyday objects move. Students will be given objects and asked to make predictions on how far each object will move after they blow on it. Then they will measure the...

Students will take a pretest to assess their knowledge about motion in a physical science class.

In this activity, children will investigate the paths that marbles take once set into motion and then how to change those paths, noting if and how they change.

Egg drop competition is a popular activity to reinforce the lessons in force and motion. In the activity, the students are asked to design a vehicle to carry the egg safely when dropped from a height of 10 feet (about 3 m) or more....

Videos that accompany activities that are hands-on challenges that focus on the engineering design process. They use simple materials, allow for multiple solutions, and are ideal for ages 9-12.

Students learn why and how motion occurs and what governs changes in motion, as described by Newton's three laws of motion. They gain hands-on experience with the concepts of forces, changes in motion, and action and reaction. In an...

This super simple activity for kindergarten-age students requires no materials and can be done inside or outside, or both and explores forces and motion.

Students watch video clips from October Sky and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to learn about projectile motion. They explore the relationships between displacement, velocity and acceleration and calculate simple projectile...