Forces

What’s a Yoyo?

Forces

Duration: 30 minutes

Notes / Activity

Activity:

Make a yo-yo move

  • 3-PS2-1: Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence of the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object. [Clarification Statement: Examples could include an unbalanced force on one side of a ball can make it start moving; and, balanced forces pushing on a box from both sides will not produce any motion at all.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to one variable at a time: number, size, or direction of forces. Assessment does not include quantitative force size, only qualitative and relative. Assessment is limited to gravity being addressed as a force that pulls objects down.]

By the end of this lesson, the student should able to:

  • Identify a force is a push or a pull

Lesson Plan

Lesson Introduction – Engage

Duration: 30 min
  • Yo-yo toy
  • Welcome students to class.
  • Divide them in groups of 3. Give each group a yo-yo and ask them what they think it is. 
  • Tell students that it is a toy which can be moved. Have them think of some ways to yo-yo.
  • Elicit:

 

How can you make the yo-yo move towards you?

How can you make the y-yo move away from you?

 

  • Get students to play with the yo-yos to see if they can move them towards and away from them. Remind students to not aim the yo-yos at their classmates. 
  • Have students describe the actions of how they move their yo-yos. 

 

Note: Accept all answers at this point. 

 

  • Have students describe the actions of how they move their yo-yos. 
  • Launch interactive to lead students to see that from the actions that they described, they need to push or pull to move the yoyo. This push or pull is a force. 

Resources

< Back