This STEM challenge can be used during an air unit. Students work together in groups to create a parachute for a lego person. Students are able to find ways to best maximize air resistance. The students need to find the best way to increase the time that the lego person stays in the air when dropped from the second floor to the first floor.

This STEM challenge can be used during an air unit. Students work together in groups to create a parachute for a lego person. Students are able to find ways to best maximize air resistance. The students need to find the best way to increase the time that the lego person stays in the air when dropped from the second floor to the first floor.

How do we find out whether the forces acting on an object are balanced or unbalanced? Learn in this video from the "Forces and Motion" chapter of the Virtual School GCSE / K12 Physics.

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After a discussion about what a parachute is and how it works, students create parachutes using different materials that they think will work best. They test their designs, and then contribute to a class discussion (and possible journal writing) to report which paper materials worked best.

Students investigate air resistance using many objects. No formal lab procedure, just a few simple instructions leaves a guided-inquiry lab activity.

Students learn about how biomedical engineers create assistive devices for persons with fine motor skill disabilities. They learn about types of forces, balanced and unbalanced forces, and the relationship between form and function, as well as the structure of the hand. They do this by designing, building and testing their own hand "gripper" prototypes that are able to grasp and lift a 200 ml cup of sand.

This lesson explores the drag force on airplanes. The students will be introduced to the concept of conservation of energy and how it relates to drag. Students will explore the relationship between drag and the shape, speed and size of an object.

This activity is a hands-on lesson that shows how air resistance affects how things move and how air is all around objects.

Students are introduced to the physics concepts of air resistance and launch angle as they apply to catapults. This includes the basic concepts of position, velocity and acceleration and their relationships to one another. They use algebra to solve for one variable given two variables.

Blast a Buick out of a cannon! Learn about projectile motion by firing various objects. Set the angle, initial speed, and mass. Add air resistance. Make a game out of this simulation by trying to hit a target.

Blast a Buick out of a cannon! Learn about projectile motion by firing various objects. Set the angle, initial speed, and mass. Add air resistance. Make a game out of this simulation by trying to hit a target.

Building upon their understanding of forces and Newton's laws of motion, students learn about the force of friction, specifically with respect to cars. They explore the friction between tires and the road to learn how it affects the movement of cars while driving. In an associated literacy activity, students explore the theme of conflict in literature, and the difference between internal and external conflict, and various types of conflicts. Stories are used to discuss methods of managing and resolving conflict and interpersonal friction.

The airplanes unit begins with a lesson on how airplanes create lift, which involves a discussion of air pressure and how wings use Bernoulli's principle to change air pressure. Next, students explore the other three forces acting on airplanes thrust, weight and drag. Following these lessons, students learn how airplanes are controlled and use paper airplanes to demonstrate these principles. The final lessons addresses societal and technological impacts that airplanes have had on our world. Students learn about different kinds of airplanes and then design and build their own balsa wood airplanes based on what they have learned.