Through ten lessons and numerous activities, students explore the natural universal rules engineers and physicists use to understand how things move and stay still. Together, these rules are called "mechanics." The study of mechanics is a way to improve our understanding of everyday movements, such as how gravity pulls things together, how objects balance, spin and twirl, and how things fly and fall. While studying Newton's three laws of motion, students gain hands-on experience with the concepts of forces, changes in motion, and action and reaction. See the Unit Overview section for a list of topics by lesson. Through hands-on activities, students model the behavior of parachutes and helicopters, closely examine falling objects, build and use a spring scale, examine collisions between skateboards, make model rockets with balloons and string, collect data from cotton ball catapults, study friction with small hovercrafts made from old CDs and balloons, experiment with center of mass by balancing objects on coat hangers and strings, compete to design clay beams with the best strength-to-weight ratio, experiment with weight distribution on homemade spinning tops, experiment with string length, weight and angle of release of pendulums made from fishing weights and string, and use marshmallows and spaghetti to construct their own building to see which can hold the most weight. For each lesson, associated literacy activities provide additional student engagement; see the Unit Overview section for descriptions.