This lesson will introduce students to Sir Isaac Newton, Aristotle and Galileo. As students learn about and experience Newton's 1st Law of Motion, they will explore gravity, force and inertia. (Appropriate for grade levels 4-8 with extension activities that teachers can use after the lesson is completed.)
Lesson Time: 60 minutes
Student Activity 1: This activity has students experience Newton's 1st Law while stacking a cup, a card, and a coin. Students will show inertia by quickly removing the card, while the coin falls directly into the cup.
Student Activity 2: In this activity, students will repeat the activity of inertia, using an empty bottle stacked with a hoop and a hex nut.
Student Activity 3: In this final activity, students will attempt to remove note cards from a tower of blocks.
Group work: Students will work in pairs for the first 2 activities and then in groups of 3-4 students for the final activity. In order to save time, teachers are asked to create the groups before our Wizard arrives.
Science Standards:
4.PS.2: Energy can be transferred from one location to another or can be transformed from one form to another
5.PS.1: The amount of change in movement of an object is based on the mass of the object and the amount of force exerted
6.PS.4: An object's motion can be described by its speed and the direction it is moving
7.PS.3: Energy can be transformed or transferred, but is never lost
7.PS.4: Energy can be transferred through a variety of ways
8.PS.2: Forces can act to change the motion of objects