Aerodynamics: What Causes Lift?

How does an airplane stay aloft when upside down? This media-rich essay from the NOVA Web site offers an explanation based on Newton's third law of motion.

The Art of Forces and Motion

Students learn about Forces and Motion by creating art that helps them to visualize, identify and explain these phenomena.

Astronauts in Hard Hats

This media-rich series of interviews from the NOVA Web site explores the unique challenges faced by astronauts doing construction work in outer space.

Astronauts Speak: Gene Cernan

In this audio resource from NOVA, astronaut Gene Cernan recounts his harrowing experience during America's first attempt to do work in outer space.

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Booming Sands

This video segment, adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, presents basic concepts of physics behind "booming" sand dunes. See how surface tension affects potential and kinetic energy and how it all works together to create sound.

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Building Curiosity: Rover Rocks Rocker-Bogie

NASA engineers test Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory rover, and demonstrate its material properties, its handling and mobility, and its design features in this NASA video.

Carbon-Fiber Car of the Future

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, find out how cars made of a material stronger than steel and half the weight can help combat climate change.

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Collisions on an Air Track

In this interactive activity adapted from the University of Toronto, observe the effect of mass on momentum in elastic and inelastic collisions.

The Deployable Energy Absorber

Watch how engineers stage a crash to test a new helicopter safety design technology in this video from NASA.

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Forces of Gravity and Air Resistance

In this lesson designed to enhance literacy skills, students learn how the forces of gravity and air resistance affect the motion of falling objects.

Galileo: His Experiments

This interactive activity from the NOVA Web site samples Galileo's experiments with falling objects, projectiles, inclined planes, and pendulums.

Galileo: His Place in Science

Einstein called Galileo the "father of modern physics." This media-rich essay from the NOVA Web site looks at Galileo's quest to understand the mathematics of motion.

Getting Airborne and Wing Design

What makes an airplane fly? Discover the connection between Newton's third law of motion and flight in this interactive activity from the NOVA Web site.

Inverse Square Law

This animation from KET's distance learning physics course demonstrates the mathematical formula for a scientific law as it applies to light.

Investigating Kinetic and Potential Energy

Students use media resources and an in-class investigation to explore the types of energy within different types of systems. They also use the formulas for kinetic and potential energy to examine the path of a projectile.

Making Big Waves

Certain sections of the Northern California coast are host to some of the largest, most spectacular ocean waves in the world. In this video segment from QUEST, learn about how these waves are able to get so large.

Masses and Springs

In this interactive simulation adapted from the University of Colorado's Physics Education Technology project, hang various masses from different springs and see the kinetic, potential, and thermal energy of each spring system. You can even slow time or move your demonstration to another planet.

Mass vs. Weight: Accelerating Mass

Astronauts on the International Space Station demonstrate Newton’s Second Law of Motion in this video from NASA's Teaching From Space initiative.

Mass vs. Weight: Air Powered Mass

In this video from NASA's Teaching From Space initiative, astronauts on board the International Space Station conduct an experiment using an air gun to exert a consistent force on two difference masses -- an empty water bag and a full water bag.

Mass vs. Weight: Introduction

Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) describe mass and weight and the differences between the two in this video from NASA’s Teaching From Space initiative.