SCIENCE CONCEPT:
- Sir Isaac Newton found that things speed up
(accelerate) quicker if the force pushing is greater. If something is
pushed hard it will accelerate faster and if the person has less mass,
the same force would accelerate him further. The force causes energy and
that energy has to go somewhere. With the smaller person the energy
causes them to move a greater distance. Newton's Second Law of Motion
defines what happens when a force acts on an object. The object
accelerates in the direction in which the force is acting A force
acting on a stationery object starts it moving. A force acting on a
moving object will speed it up, slow it down, or change the direction in
which it is moving.
STUDENT OBJECTIVE:
- The student will explore how acceleration on an
object causes it to have energy which causes it to keep moving. With
colliding objects the energy always has to go somewhere.
OVERVIEW:
- In this activity, the student will first take a closed
matchbox full of matches. They will drop it about 10 inches on top of a
smooth tabletop so that the box will land upright on one end. The box
cannot land upright and will instead bounce everytime because the box
cannot lose all its energy and has to keep on moving. In the second part
of the experiment, have the student open the matchbox first. Drop the
matchbox straight and it will stay upright.
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PREPARATION TIME:
- Variable
LESSON TIME:
- 20 minutes.
TEACHER PREP:
- Gather the materials for the experiment. Full
matchboxes for every two students.
WORDS TO KNOW:
- acceleration
- stationery
- friction
- energy
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