This is an inquiry activity that relies of pervious understanding of balancing and weighing to introduce a properties of air.

This 12 session course is designed for the beginning or novice archer and uses recurve indoor target bows and equipment. The purpose of the course is to introduce students to the basic techniques of indoor target archery emphasizing the care and use of equipment, range safety, stance and shooting techniques, scoring and competition.

This lesson is a classroom activity where students learn to use their balance knowledge to create a beautiful mobile.

In this video segment from Cyberchase, Digit and Inez must balance two number sentences to save the bunnies of Cyberspace.

This activity allows children to construct something themselves and be creative while learning about the concept of the center of mass.

Watch the ZOOM cast learn about center of gravity by trying to balance a pencil on their fingers and noses.

" This course provides an exciting, eye-opening, and thoroughly useful inquiry into what it takes to live an extraordinary life, on your own terms. The instructors address what it takes to succeed, to be proud of your life, and to be happy in it. Participants tackle career satisfaction, money, body, vices, and relationship to themselves and others. They learn how to address issues in their lives, how to live life, and how to learn from it. This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month. This not-for-credit course is sponsored by the Department of Science, Technology, and Society. A similar, semester-long version of this course is taught in the Sloan Fellows Program. A semester-long extension of the IAP course is also taught to the population at large of MIT (please see PE.550, Spring). Acknowledgment The instructors would like to thank Prof. David Mindell for his sponsorship of this course, his intention for its continued expansion, and his commitment to the well-being of MIT students."

" This course provides an exciting, eye-opening, and thoroughly useful inquiry into what it takes to live an extraordinary life, on your own terms. The instructors address what it takes to succeed, to be proud of your life, and to be happy in it. Participants tackle career satisfaction, money, body, vices, and relationship to themselves. They learn how to confront issues in their lives, how to live life, and how to learn from it. A short version of this course meets during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month. Then this semester-long extension of the IAP course is taught to interested members of the MIT community. This not-for-credit course is sponsored by the Department of Science, Technology, and Society. A similar, semester-long version of this course is taught in the Sloan Fellows Program. Acknowledgment The instructors would like to thank Prof. David Mindell for his sponsorship of this course, his hopes for its continued expansion, and his commitment to the well-being of MIT students."

The student will predict whether one cup of everything weighs the same. Next, the student will estimate the mass of several cups of materials. Then, using a primer balance the student will find the actual mass of each cup of materials in grams. The students will order the cups from lightest to heaviest by mass.

In this Cyberchase video segment, the CyberSquad figures out how to earn 100 snelfus in 11 days.

Statics is a sophomore level engineering course, offered in all mechanical and civil engineering programs. Statics forms the essential pre-requisite to a number of follow-on courses, such as dynamics and mechanics of materials, and lays the foundation for design of mechanical systems. In most institutions, Statics is taught in a traditional way with an emphasis on the mathematical operations that are useful in its implementation, but without enough emphasis on modeling the interactions between real mechanical artifacts. Unfortunately, students who learn Statics in the traditional way do not generally gain the ability to apply concepts of Statics in the analysis and design of mechanical systems and structures which they confront in their subsequent education. Prior to beginning work on the OLI Statics course, the authors undertook the development of a concept inventory for Statics which included identification of key concepts in Statics and the construction of a testing instrument to measure a student's ability to use these concepts in isolation. The authors also combined a variety of instructional techniques known to increase learning - such as active learning, collaboration, integration of assessment and feedback, and use of concrete physical manipulatives - to devise a sequence of learning modules for the Statics classroom. These practical instructional tools, which reflect a more organized, sequential approach to addressing concepts in Statics, have been presented at conferences and described in the engineering education literature. The OLI Statics course implements this sequential, object-centered instructional approach and seeks to address the educational challenge of improving conceptual understanding and fostering improved ability to apply concepts to real mechanical systems.

This is a conversion of a presentation given at the Negotiating the Ideal Faculty Position Workshop given on October 14-16, 2007. This presentation was compiled by Mikki Hebl, Rice University.

A brief history of the Hydrostatic Balance.

This activity can be conducted in the classroom. The students are given an opportunity to discover the basic concept of balance/counterbalance and how evenly distributed weight affects an object.

The application of engineering principles is explored in the creation of mobiles. As students create their own mobiles, they take into consideration the forces of gravity and convection air currents. They learn how an understanding of balancing forces is important in both art and engineering design.

In this video segment from Cyberchase, the CyberSquad must adjust their earnings strategy in order to win the bid for the Encryptor chip.

Concerns associated with developing orchestra programs in public schools, youth symphonies and higher education.

Students explore the concepts of center of mass and static equilibrium by seeing how non-symmetrical objects balance. Using a paper cut-out shape of a parrot sitting on a wire coat hanger, they learn that their parrot exists in stable equilibrium it returns to its balancing point after being disturbed. The weight of its tail makes the parrot balance upright. Give the parrot a push, and she knocks off balance, but swings back and forth until coming to rest in balance again.

Students write a biographical sketch of an artist or athlete who lives on the edge, riding the gravity wave, to better understand how these artists and athletes work with gravity and manage risk. Note: The literacy activities for the Mechanics unit are based on physical themes that have broad application to our experience in the world concepts of rhythm, balance, spin, gravity, levity, inertia, momentum, friction, stress and tension.