Exploratorium
Balancing Stick
Have some physical science fun when studying the center of gravity or center of mass. Simply have balancing artists stand a dowel on one finger and keep it from falling over! A lump of clay is added and moved up along the dowel over a...
Magic of Physics
Moving Toy Mechanisms
Who says playing around in class is a bad idea? Precocious physicists engage in building mechanisms that include cams, gears, pulleys, and levers using an interactive lesson. After completing toy tutorials about each topic, users build a...
Community Resources for Science
Spring Mechanics
Scholars practice calculating spring constants before performing hands-on experiments. They compare data for parallel and series springs. Finally, they learn how spring mechanics find applications in biotechnology, such as prosthetic limbs.
Kenan Fellows
Analyzing Speed from Different Modalities
Show us your moves. Using sensor equipment, scholars track the motion of different movements, such as jogging, skipping, or jump roping. They analyze velocity and acceleration and create graphs representing each movement.
University of Southern California
Design and Test an Air Lift Siphon
Build an air lift siphon using your mad physics skills! Learners first investigate the importance of circulating water in aquaponics systems. They then use density to their advantage as they engineer an air lift siphon
EngageNY
Modeling with Inverse Trigonometric Functions 2
Use inverse trigonometric functions to work with ramps, rabbits, and Talladega. The class models real-world situations with trigonometric functions and solves them using inverses in the 15th installment of a 16-part series. Pupils solve...
Teach Engineering
Mechanics of Elastic Solids
Make the connection between Hooke's law and elasticity with an activity that introduces the class to the behavior of elastic materials. The resource defines stress and strain to calculate the modules of elasticity of materials and also...
Teach Engineering
Tissue Mechanics
Engage your class by showing them how silly putty and human tissues are alike. Pupils learn more about tissue mechanics by reflecting upon their experiences with silly putty. The instructional activity covers collagen, elastin, and...
Teach Engineering
Preconditioning Balloons: Viscoelastic Biomedical Experiments
What does stretching a balloon have to do with equilibrium? Groups explore preconditioning by stretching a balloon to a point of equilibrium. They then measure the amount of force required to stretch the balloon to the same point several...
Teach Engineering
Creepy Silly Putty
It might be silly to determine the creep rate of putty but groups will enjoy making different formulations of silly putty and playing with them to understand how the different mixtures behave. The second part of the activity has groups...
Teach Engineering
Using Hooke's Law to Understand Materials
Provide a Hooke for a lesson on elasticity with an activity that has groups investigate a set of springs. They use a set procedure to collect data to calculate the spring constant for each spring using Hooke's Law. The groups predict the...
Curated OER
Strong as the Weakest Link
Students recognize that compression and tension forces are important considerations in building structures. They construct their own building structure using marshmellows and spaghetti to see which structure can hold the most weight.
Curated OER
Blow-and-Go Parachute
Students design a skydiver and parachute constraption to demonstrate how drag caused by air resistance slows the descent of skydivers as they travel back to Earth. They experience how gravity pulls the skydiver toward the earth and how...
Curated OER
Erosion
In this erosion worksheet, students complete a crossword puzzle given 17 clues about the types of erosion, the causes of erosion and the results of erosion.
Curated OER
New York State Testing Program: English Language Arts Book 2
Practice listening and writing skills with this resource. This is a test created by the New York State Testing Program. Learners listen to a passage called "Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa" twice and write responses to the selection. They...
Curated OER
Report Writing: Athletes and Gravity
Using the fascinating topic of extreme sports, learners are prepared to research and write a report. Unfortunately, most of the Internet links for the research are no longer valid, but the lesson can still be implemented by having pupils...
Curated OER
Proofreading Lesson 6
Explore proofreading strategies with this instructional activity. Eighth graders practice finding errors in punctuation, capitalization, and formatting. Then, they write about a given topic and then proofread their compositions, looking...
Curated OER
Move It! With Simple Machines
Students explore engineering by participating in a mechanical class activity. In this simple machines lesson, students identify many simple machines that allow them to perform tasks easily each day. Students collaborate in small groups...
Curated OER
Applied Science - Physics Pre-Lab
Students describe the science of physics. In this Physics lesson, students observe examples of physics within their classroom. Students create a definition for physics.
Curated OER
Simple Machines
In this science worksheet, students focus upon the concept of bicycle gears and develop the answers to the 2 questions at the bottom of the page.
Curated OER
It Takes Two To Tangle
Learners utilize strategies to comprehend literature. They write stories with diverse vocablulary that incorporate the difference between internal and external conflict. They make sure that the stories use methods of managing and...
Curated OER
TE Activity: Super Spinners!
Young scholars make spinners to investigate rotational inertia, rotational speed, angular momentum, and velocity. They make two sets of spinners that have different mass distributions and shapes. They complete a worksheet while...
Curated OER
TE Activity: Heavy Helicopters
Students study the concepts of weight and drag while making paper helicopters. They measure how adding more weight to the helicopter changes the time for the helicopter to fall to the ground. They apply what they examine to the work of...
Curated OER
Crash! Bang!
Young scholars study the physical force of linear momentum by investigating collisions. They analyze the difference between elastic and inelastic collisions. They calculate linear momentum.