Motion and Forces Unit Update!

Well we are fully immersed into our first unit in learning about MOTION AND FORCES.  The main purpose of this unit (Grade Level Expectation) is to: Identify and calculate the direction and magnitude of forces that act on an object, and explain the results in the object’s change in motion.  With that being stated, here’s what we’ve done so far. First we sketched out our unit plan by making a “roadmap” of our learning about Motion and Forces, by creating our title page in our notebooks. From here, we “hopped” right into our first lab. . . The Bunny Hopper Lab. The purpose of this lab was to look at how a wind-up toy moves (direction) by using a force, which we can then measure as speed using  our SPEED = DISTANCE/TIME equation. Following this lab, we leapt forth into two additional learning activities which helped to learn to calculate speed of moving objects. The first of those labs had you measuring the effect of ramp height on the speed of a car. In this lab, we had to recognize the importance of the rules of graphing (Thanks Mrs. Hrubes and Mr. Stockert) from math class. The second lab we partook in was the Human Speeds lab where you chose 4 means of transportation and measured the speeds of each of those paths. Again, we graphed that information to identify and calculate speed of an object. Next we will look to the second half of the unit, where we will idenify how forces create motion, and the various forms those forces take on.  To do this, we will use some various web resources to assist us. Check out the photos below for a re-cap of the last few weeks.

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