Middle School Inquiry Lab on Net Force
In this lab students will play a board game to demonstrate and calculate how unbalanced forces change the direction of an object.
Each inquiry lab will contain an essential question that will drive the lesson and make students think. For this lesson, the essential question is:
- What kind of forces cause an object to change speed or direction?
BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND MATERIALS LIST:
Students will begin the lab by reading the essential question and background information. This can be done individually, as lab groups, or as a whole class. If you consider lab groups, you also might include some type of whole class formative checks before digging into the lab.
.svg)
Materials List:
- 1 or 2 decks of Newton cards
- 1 Newton football field
- 1 push force arrow
- 1 die
PROCEDURE:
For this lab, laminated Newton cards and a push force arrow, as well as a Newton football field, should be provided for each group. You may choose to laminate the field but it is not necessary.
Groups will be divided into two teams. Use a coin to determine who is going to be the offense and defense. Once teams are set, shuffle the Newton cards and place the cards in a draw pile. Offense will pick which end zone they want to protect and will use the push force arrow facing their end zone.
Using the die as a football, students will have to draw cards in order to move the die to the opposite end to score. Each yard line marker represents 10 Newtons of force.
Defense is hoping to pull a “push” force card, while the offense looks to pull a “pull” force card. When cards are drawn that require teams to calculate the force and direction, students will use a calculate unbalanced forces page in their lab sheet package.
Each time a team scores, they earn one point. After the score, you restart with the die on the 50-yard line and Newton cards are reshuffled. The first team to score five points wins the game.
CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING:
At this point in the lab, students will be checked for understanding by answering questions about their findings. Here is one that comes with the lab:
- What causes an object to change speed or direction?
CONCLUSION
Students will go back to the essential question and write a CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) to conclude the lab. Once completed, students will reflect back on their learning by answering the following questions:
- What is the unit of measurement when calculating force?
- What is required in a force for an object’s speed or direction to change?
- What would happen to an object if the two forces acting on it are equal and in opposite directions?
MODIFIED AND INDEPENDENT INQUIRY VERSIONS
All of the Kesler Science inquiry labs come with three different modification levels. Each lab is differentiated using the icons below.
STANDARDS ALIGNMENT
TEKS: 8.6A – Demonstrate and calculate how unbalanced forces change the speed or direction of an object’s motion.
