Jim'sCosmicScience

This lab activity has student groups riding an elevator while a volunteer stands on a bathroom scale in order to get readings on the Normal Force. After conversion from pounds to Newtons, students create 8 Free Body Diagrams showing the forces on the person, the directions of the velocity and acceleration vectors, and calculations for the net force and acceleration experienced by the rider.

In this presentation, a (secretly lazy) horse studies physics at night in the barn and uses Newton's 3rd Law to convince a farmer that it is futile to pull on a wagon since "if I pull on the wagon, the wagon exerts an equal and opposite force on me". Agent-Object notation is explained and used to analyze the three (horizontal) interactions: horse/ground, horse/wagon, & wagon/ground. Ends with an activity for small groups with whiteboards or paper to assess understanding.

This tutorial and mini-worksheet explains the rationale for and the steps for creating a Free Body Diagram (FBD). Includes determining the contact and non-contact forces at play, and labeling forces. A short, but challenging, exercise lets students create 2 FBDs so they can practice the steps, and see how the choice of system changes a FBD.

A 1 page review of Newton's first and second laws. Students fill in the blanks using a word bank. Good warm-up activity with a partner or small group. Complete solution included.