Forces are fun
View Sequence overviewStudents will:
- recognise that push and pull forces can cause an object to start moving.
- recognise that not all push and pull forces cause motion.
Students will represent their understanding as they:
- share their techniques for making objects move, keep moving and move faster.
- construct sentences to describe their experiences.
In this lesson, assessment is formative.
Feedback might focus on:
- students’ use of push and pull forces to change motion.
- Do they recognise that push and pull forces need to be applied to change an object’s motion?
- Do they recognise that stronger and/or more frequent forces need to be applied to make something move faster?
- students’ understanding that not all push or pull forces make an object move.
- Can they identify objects that won’t move when pushed/pulled?
- Can they explain why those objects won’t move?
Whole class
Class science journal (digital or hard-copy)
Objects that will move in different ways when pushed/pulled to set up challenge stations, such as:
- spinning tops, either that work by manually spinning them, or that use a pump handle (auger)
- toy cars
- toy cars or similar attached to a string (so they can be pulled)
- balls or similar (rolling)
- books or objects that can slide
- jack-in-the-box or similar
- dice
- origami hopping frogs
- See Slide 4 of the Origami frogs PowerPoint from the reSolve Maths sequence Statistics: Origami frogs for instructions on how to fold origami hopping frogs.
An object that will be immovable when pushed/pulled, for example, a wall
Optional: Printed copies of the Push and pull challenges Resource sheet
Each student
Optional: Individual science journal (digital or hard-copy)
Lesson
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkRe-orient
Review the images of students completing activities from Lesson 1.
Discuss the pushes and pulls required to complete each activity.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkIdentifying and constructing questions is the creative driver of the inquiry process. It allows students to explore what they know and how they know it. During the Inquire phase of the LIA Framework, the Question routine allows for past activities to be reviewed and to set the scene for the investigation that students will undertake. The use of effective questioning techniques can influence students’ view and interpretation of upcoming content, open them to exploration and link to their current interests and science capital.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to spend some time considering the mindset of students at the start of each Inquire phase. What do you want students to be thinking about, what do they already know and what is the best way for them to approach the task? What might tap into their curiosity?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkWhat do pushes and pulls do?
Revise the meaning of the terms “push” and “pull”.
Re-enact the body movements that students can make to cause push and pull forces with prompts such as How would you push an object away from you? or How would you pull an object closer to you?.
Pose the question: How do pushes and pulls affect objects?
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkThe Investigate routine provides students with an opportunity to explore the key ideas of science, to plan and conduct an investigation, and to gather and record data. The investigations are designed to systematically develop content knowledge and skills through increasingly complex processes of structured inquiry, guided inquiry and open inquiry approaches. Students are encouraged to process data to identify trends and patterns and link them to the real-world context of the teaching sequence.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment (Launch phase) that identified the alternative conceptions that students held. Are there activities that challenge these ideas and provide openings for discussion? What content knowledge and skills do students need to be able to complete the final (Act phase) task? How could you systematically build these through the investigation routines? Are there opportunities to build students’ understanding and skills in the science inquiry processes through the successive investigations?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkPush and pull challenge
Set up a series of stations in the classroom, each containing an object that moves in a different way (see suggestions in the List of materials above). At each station, students are challenged to demonstrate and answer the following:
- Can you make this object move?
- Once it’s moving, can you keep it moving?
- Once it’s moving, can you make it move faster?
Working in teams, students rotate through the stations completing the challenges set out above.
Forces and continued motion
Are forces needed to keep an object moving?
According to Newton’s first law of motion, an object that is already moving will keep moving at a constant speed in a straight line unless another external force acts upon it. Therefore, the continued application of force is not required to maintain constant motion.
However, in a practical sense, it often seems like continued application of force is needed to keep things moving, because opposing forces like friction and air resistance are constantly slowing objects down. Therefore, we have to keep reapplying a force to overcome those opposing forces.
This can be seen for example when a soccer ball is kicked across the grass. Frictional force between the grass and the ball will slow the ball until it eventually stops moving. To keep it moving, a force needs to be re-applied to the ball (i.e. it needs to be kicked again) to overcome the frictional force acting on the ball.
Students in Foundation Year simply need to understand the practicalities of getting and keeping an object moving, that is, that forces have to be re-applied.
According to Newton’s first law of motion, an object that is already moving will keep moving at a constant speed in a straight line unless another external force acts upon it. Therefore, the continued application of force is not required to maintain constant motion.
However, in a practical sense, it often seems like continued application of force is needed to keep things moving, because opposing forces like friction and air resistance are constantly slowing objects down. Therefore, we have to keep reapplying a force to overcome those opposing forces.
This can be seen for example when a soccer ball is kicked across the grass. Frictional force between the grass and the ball will slow the ball until it eventually stops moving. To keep it moving, a force needs to be re-applied to the ball (i.e. it needs to be kicked again) to overcome the frictional force acting on the ball.
Students in Foundation Year simply need to understand the practicalities of getting and keeping an object moving, that is, that forces have to be re-applied.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkFollowing an investigation, the Integrate routine provides time and space for data to be evaluated and insights to be synthesized. It reveals new insights, consolidates and refines representations, generalises context and broadens students’ perspectives. It allows student thinking to become visible and opens formative feedback opportunities. It may also lead to further questions being asked, allowing the Inquire phase to start again.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment that was undertaken during the Launch phase. Consider if alternative conceptions could be used as a jumping off point to discussions. How could students represent their learning in a way that would support formative feedback opportunities? Could small summative assessment occur at different stages in the teaching sequence?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkMaking things move
In the following Integrate routine, students are guided to link their experiences moving toys with the science concept being explored. Through modelling, questioning and discussion, students should come to a consensus that:
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Groups share how they made the objects move, keep moving and move faster at the different stations. Discuss the similarities and differences between teams’ techniques, and how each one involved pushes and pulls.
Ask teams if they could make all of the objects move. Identify that one of the objects couldn’t be moved, and discuss why students think it couldn’t be moved.
Either as a class or independently, students construct sentences to explain how they made the objects move, keep moving and move faster. You might use sentence stems such as:
- To make the ______ move I.....
- To make the ______ keep moving I.....
- To make the ______ move faster I.....
- I couldn’t move ______ because.....
Reflect on the lesson
You might:
- review the images of activities students participated in first lesson and identify how students caused motion, made it continue, or helped it to speed up.
- add any relevant words or images to the class word wall.