All Resources and Lesson Plans: Motions and Forces

Acids and Bases: Testing Rocket Cars
In this ZOOM video segment, cast members make bottle rocket cars using lemon juice and baking soda, and experiment with different ways of launching the cars.

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.

Air Power: Experimenting with Balloons
In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, cast members experiment with the amount of air expelled first from a balloon, then through a straw attached to it, and see how both affect a balloon's behavior.

Amplitude
This interactive activity adapted from the University of Utah's ASPIRE Lab shows how a pendulum's amplitude changes as you set it swinging from different distances from its axis, and how the amplitude of a sound wave changes as you adjust the volume.

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.

Collection Developed by: KQED Public Television

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.

Atmospheric Pressure
Did you know that air has weight? This illustrated essay from the NOVA Web site explores conditions that affect air density and atmospheric pressure.

Birth of a Supernova, Type Ia
In this interactive activity from NOVA Online, learn about a type of exploding star — a Type Ia supernova — that is so bright that astronomers can measure the distance to the galaxy in which it resides, and even learn which elements make up the star.

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.

Build a Bridge
Survey potential bridge sites, research bridge design, and select the right bridge for the right location in this interactive activity from the NOVA Web site.

Building Simple Machines: Plant Quencher
In this video segment from ZOOM, Jillian explains how her simple machine uses marbles, levers, flowing sand, and a spinning wheel to water a plant.

Carnival Physics: Midway Games
Follow Mary Jane and Eliza as they test and measure the best way to use a moving ball's energy to win at carnival games in this video from DragonflyTV.

Centripetal Force: Pulling Cs and Gs
In this interactive activity from NOVA, discover how centripetal force can affect you when riding in a car or flying at high speeds in a fighter jet.

Circular Motion
In this interactive activity featuring videos adapted from the Rutgers PAER Group, observe examples of circular motion. Can you find a common reason why the objects and people presented move in a circle?

Clifton Suspension Bridge
This video segment from Building Big illustrates the basic design principles of the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, England.

Columns: Experimenting with Balloons
Watch the ZOOM cast find out how many balloons filled with air and then with water are required to support the weight of a cast member.

Columns: Finding the Strongest Shape
In this video segment, members of the ZOOM cast experiment by bending and folding sheets of paper into various shapes to see which shape will support the weight of a heavy book.

Construct an Aqueduct
Think like an engineer and build an aqueduct in this interactive activity from the NOVA Web site.

Defy Gravity! Balancing Balls on Air
In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, cast members use a hair dryer to balance a ball in a stream of air, seemingly defying gravity.

Defy Gravity! Upside Down Ping Pong Ball
In this video segment, the ZOOM cast is challenged to keep a ping pong ball in a funnel while the funnel is held upside down, seemingly defying gravity.

Design and Construct a Road Sign Support
Students use simple materials to design, build, and test a model of a free-standing structure used to support overhead road signs.

Designing a Puff Mobile
The air you exhale can power a puff mobile. Watch as the ZOOM cast races their air-powered designs to see which design features are the most successful.

Designing Balloon Cars
Can the air in a balloon power a car? Watch students from Weston, Massachusetts, demonstrate their balloon car designs in this video adapted from ZOOM.

Designing Electric Circuits: Steadiness Tester
In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, cast members discover that metal is a good conductor of electricity as they play the steadiness tester game.

Designing the Citigroup Skyscraper
This video segment adapted from Thinking Big, Building Small shows how a structural engineer overcame the challenge of building New York's Citigroup skyscraper over a church.

Design Squad: Truss Bridge
In this video segment adapted from Design Squad—a PBS TV series featuring high school contestants tackling engineering challenges—students employ the concepts of tension and compression as they build a truss bridge without the aid of power tools.

Electric Circuits
Students model, build, and draw diagrams of electric circuits and test the conductivity of a variety of materials.

The Electromagnetic Spectrum: FRONTLINE
This video segment adapted from FRONTLINE introduces the electromagnetic spectrum and explains how the various types of electromagnetic waves are distinguished by the amount of energy each wave carries.

Energy in a Roller Coaster Ride
See potential energy convert to kinetic energy in this interactive activity from WGBH that shows a roller coaster in action.

Energy Transfer in a Trebuchet
On NOVA, a team of carpenters, timber framers, engineers, and historians recreate a medieval throwing machine called a trebuchet. This adapted video segment explores how understanding energy transfer informs their design.

Experimenting with a Pendulum
In this video segment, members of the ZOOM cast experiment with a pendulum and discover what they need to do to make the pendulum complete one back-and-forth swing in five seconds.

Exploring Windmill Design
In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, cast members are challenged to design a windmill that can be powered by a hair dryer.

Forces Lab
In this interactive activity from the Building Big Web site, select one of the actions of squeezing, stretching, bending, sliding, or twisting to explore the forces of compression, tension, shear, and torsion.

Free-Falling and "Weightlessness"
Discover the difference between free-falling and weightlessness in this interactive activity from the NOVA Web site.

Funny Boat
In this video segment adapted from FETCH!™, contestants are challenged to use materials from a garbage dump to build a boat that floats, can be steered, and is propelled by something other than oars.

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

Galileo on the Moon
Watch Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott perform Galileo's falling objects experiment on the Moon in this video segment from NASA.

Galileo's Inclined Plane
How did Galileo figure out the mathematics of falling bodies? This video segment adapted from NOVA examines Galileo's work on motion.

Galileo: Timeline of His Life
This illustrated timeline from the NOVA Web site turns back the clock to the late 1500's to relive the dramatic life of one of the world's most renowned scientists.

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.

Gravity and Falling Objects
Students investigate the force of gravity and how all objects, regardless of their mass, fall to the ground at the same rate.

Gravity on Earth and in Space
This collection of images compares the effects of gravity on Earth and in space.

Hoover Dam
This video segment from Building Big: "Dams," demonstrates the basic principals at work in the Hoover Dam, a concrete gravity dam that also makes use of the properties of the arch.

How Do You Get to the Moon?
This video, adapted from NOVA, showcases the competing engineering plans designed for landing a person on the Moon for the first time.

Infrared Gallery
How would your world look if you saw heat instead of light? In this interactive resource produced for Teachers' Domain, see what familiar objects look like through an infrared camera and watch infrared videos of geysers, mudpots, and hot springs.

Investigating a Suspension Bridge
In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, the cast builds a suspension bridge from a couple of chairs, some cardboard, and rope.

Invisible Forces
Sometimes it is challenging to comprehend the forces that effect out everyday life because most forces we can't see. This video segment from SPARK shows how one artist makes them visible.

Collection Developed by: KQED Public Television

Kid Designer: A Comfortable Cardboard Chair
Follow along in this video segment from ZOOM as 13-year-old Nick explains how he came up with a design, tested materials, and constructed his own cardboard chair.

The Leaning Tower: Where It Stands Today
Will the Leaning Tower of Pisa give way to gravity? In this interview from the NOVA Web site, engineer John Burland relates the difficult job of saving the tower.

Lifting with Air
How can you lift a heavy metal table using air? In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, cast members succeed in lifting a table using their own breath and a few plastic bags.

Lightning Hunters
Find out how scientists and engineers use rockets to attract lightning in this video segment adapted from NOVA.

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.

Collection Developed by: KQED Public Television

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.