This unit will be divided into two parts. In the first the student will be engaged in game which will have them race around the classroom in odd ways, such as jumping or crawling on their knees. They will use motion probes, stop-watches, and yardsticks to gather data on their motions. They will then analyze these motions and learn how to represent them in graphs. In the second part of the unit they will analyze a variety of everyday motions and the forces associated with them, from simple to complex, and learn how forces influence the way things move.
The learning goals for this unit are:
If more than one force acts on an object along a straight line, then the forces will reinforce or cancel one another, depending on their direction and magnitude.
Unbalanced forces acting on an object change
its speed or direction of motion, or both.
An object that is not subjected to unbalanced forces will continue to
move at a constant speed and in a straight line.
In most familiar situations, frictional forces complicate the description of motion, although the basic principles still apply.
The motion of an object is always judged with
respect to some other object or point.
Electric currents and magnets can exert a force on each other.
If a large enough unbalanced force acts on an object toward a single point, the object's path will curve into an orbit around the point.
The sun's gravitational pull holds the earth and other planets in their orbits, just as the planets' gravitational pull keeps their moons in orbit around them.