Exploring the Forces of Tension

Make your work as a teacher a little easier with a physical science project on simple machines. After introducing young scientists to these devices and identifying their different uses around the school, this project engages children in...

Investigate invisible forces. Young engineers design a setup that changes the direction of a steel ball using a magnetic force. The purpose of the setup is to model the gravitational pull of spacecraft by planetary bodies.

Young scientists design a rocket to launch using Newton's Laws of Motion in order to discover for themselves the forces of motion. 

"By the hair on your chinny-chin-chin, I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in," says the big, bad wolf! Engineering hopefuls are challenged to design and construct a hurricane-proof building from simple office and craft...

Pupils examine a stress-strain diagram that compares the advantages and disadvantages of the two common bridge building materials, concrete and steel. The also consider the factors that influence the materials builders choose for their...

Here's a force to be reckoned with in the physics classroom! Scholars discover the movements associated with tension, compression, and other common forces through a hands-on simulation. Pupils pull, push, and twist their way through each...

What a wonderful way to explore motion and forces! Learners design a catapult, after watching a video and discussing types of catapults. This is a comprehensive and complete lesson with links to supplementary resources.

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.

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 instructional activity to record their observations of the...

Don't twist and turn looking for a resource. The first installment of a six-part series teaches young engineers about the five fundamental forces of compression, tension, shear, bending, and torsion. These forces help explain different...