Learning Outcomes for Newton's Laws
Lesson Plans || Learning Outcomes and Activities || Teacher Notes || Labs
The list below displays sample learning objectives for the unit on Newton's Laws. The various activities from the Lesson Plans have been organized by objective. This format of organizing The Physics Classroom's activities may be more useful to some teachers than the Lesson Plan format. It is worth noting that the activities identified below only include those activities included on the Lesson Plans and in the Pre-Built Task Tracker courses. Additional activities are referenced on the Teacher Notes page.
1. Newton's First Law
Make meaning of Newton's first law by relating balanced forces to the two possible motion states (at rest and constant speed) and describe the relationship between mass and inertia.
Reading:
Video:
Labs:
Lab 1: Pass the Water
Think Sheets:
Minds On Physics:
2. Balanced vs. Unbalanced Forces
Relate the motion that occurs (and its representation by words, dot diagrams, or kinematic graphs) to the relative size of the individual forces acting upon an object for both balanced and unbalanced force situations.
Reading:
Video:
Think Sheets:
Physics Interactives with Concept Checkers:
Concept Builders:
Minds On Physics:
3. Newton's Second Law
Use Newton's second law to relate the acceleration to the net force and object mass and to predict the effect of varying net force and/or mass upon the acceleration of the object.
Reading:
Video:
Labs:
Lab 4: F-m-a
Think Sheets:
Physics Interactives with Concept Checkers:
Concept Builders:
CalcPad Problem Sets:
Science Reasoning Activity:
4. Mass and Weight
Define mass and weight; describe the difference between them and use an equation to calculate one quantity from the other quantity.
Video:
Labs:
Lab 3: Wait. Hmmm. Gee.
Think Sheets:
Minds On Physics:
CalcPad Problem Sets:
5. Identifying Forces and Constructing Free-Body Diagrams
Identify the types of forces acting upon an object and construct a free-body diagram for the object.
Reading:
Video:
Think Sheets:
Physics Interactives with Concept Checkers:
Concept Builders:
Minds On Physics:
6. Force Analysis
Use a free-body diagram to analyze the forces acting upon an object so as to determine the mathematical value of the acceleration or of an unknown force.
Reading:
Video:
Think Sheets:
CalcPad Problem Sets:
7. Skydiving and Terminal Velocity
Describe the factors that affect the amount of air resistance and use such understanding to describe the changes in net force, accceleration, and velocity for a falling skydiver.
Reading:
Video:
Labs:
Lab 5 - Coffee Filter Skydiver Lab
Think Sheets:
Physics Interactives with Concept Checkers:
CalcPad Problem Sets:
Newton's Laws 5 on Net Force and Vertical Acceleration (some problems are skydiving problems)
8. Newton's Third Law
Understand the nature of a force to be the result of an interaction between two obects, identify the action-reaction force pairs for any given interaction, and compare the relative magnitude and direction of the two forces in the force pair.
Reading:
Video:
Think Sheets:
Minds On Physics:
Review Activities
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