Explore the forces at work when pulling against a cart, and pushing a refrigerator, crate, or person. Create an applied force and see how it makes objects move. Change friction and see how it affects the motion of objects.

Explore the forces at work when you try to push a filing cabinet. Create an applied force and see the resulting friction force and total force acting on the cabinet. Charts show the forces, position, velocity, and acceleration vs. time.

In the following interactive students will begin to explain how an object must be displaced for a force on it to do work. They will also explain how relative directions of force and displacement determine whether the work done is...

A slideshow and a short quiz on simple machines and how they reduce the amount of work or effort needed to complete a task.

In the following interactive students will begin to define nonconservative forces and explain how they affect mechanical energy. They will show how the principle of conservation of energy can be applied by treating the conservative...

Through illustrated examples and practice problems, students apply the relationship between work and mechanical energy change to a variety of motion scenarios in order to test our understanding.

See how motion is converted and the energy associated with the motion is used to do work.

In this interactive exercise, explore the quantitative relationship between work and mechanical energy in situations in which there are no external forces doing work.

Kids learn about glossary and terms in the science of physics and motion. Definitions for words such as momentum, force, work, energy, gravity, scalar, vector, power, and more.

Set up several ramps around the room and allow the young scholars to explore and investigate how they work.

Have you ever been assigned a chapter to read for homework? After you finish you may think to yourself, "That was a lot of work!" You might be surprised to learn that in the scientific sense, reading a chapter is not work at all!In...

Given descriptions, illustrations, graphs, or charts, students will contrast situations where work is done with different amounts of force to situations where no work is done, such as moving a box with a ramp and without a ramp or...

This is a performance task for Grade Four students where they observe two different pendulums and compare the two types of motion. The activity is designed for a lab setting where students work at individual stations. A rubric and...

By taking a look at the energy of motion all around us, students learn about the types of energy and their characteristics. They first learn about the two simplest forms of mechanical energy: kinetic and potential energy, as illustrated...

This lesson explains the similarities and differences between work and impulse.

A video and a short multiple-choice quiz on the topic of gravity and inertia, and how they work together to keep objects from floating off into space.

[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] In this online lesson students will learn to calculate work and explain how it relates to the overarching idea of energy.

This activity is based on the common experiment of running a marble down a ramp to do work on a cup. Learners will be able to see the relationship between mass and energy of the marble and the ramp height.

Displays images by photojournalist, Sebastian Salgado, on immigrants in motion "seeking survival and a better life - one individual at a time, one family at a time, from field to town to city, and across national boundaries"....

Students are asked to create a bungee jump that will protect a hard-boiled egg from breaking. A force sensor is needed to measure the push/pull forces on the egg. Data is inserted into force-time graphs. After completing three...

This site from the Virginia Commonwealth University gives good information on the definition of work using nice graphics and interactive questions. Immediate feedback on student answers is provided.

A collection of experiments where students can learn about how friction works and affects the physical world. At the end, students design a tortoise to win by slowing it down using friction. Lesson includes explanation of the concept of...

Learn about the fact that forces cause acceleration in this article about Newton's Second Law. Includes examples and worked examples of problems.

Hunkin's Experiments is a group of simple cartoon illustrations of scientific principles. Some would work well in the classroom, but others have little value beyond entertaining students. All of the projects are easy to do. This pair of...