Forces are important in all aspects of life.

They are all around the students, all

throughout the world, and are everywhere in the universe. Forces are necessary to
understand because they are the cause of motion. Nothing moves without some sort of
force acting upon it. The goal of this unit is to introduce students to examples of forces
(friction, gravity and magnetism), and what affects the size and direction of a given force.
This will be achieved through lessons covering what forces are, the difference between a
contact and a non-contact force, how mass influences force, Newtons 3rd Law and a brief
lesson on the Sir Isaac Newton, who discovered or modeled most of these theories.
After completing the unit students should be to answer why and how the objects
around them are moving using scientific terms. Students should also have the power to
predict how an object will react to the introduction or stoppage of a force. They will
know which direction the objects will go, what force(s) caused this and be able to explain
why using a diagram.
This information is helpful to students not only in an academic setting but is also
practical in real life situations. Students who play sports such as bowling, roller skating or
football can see directly how it applies to their sports with examples of each used
throughout. This unit also helps students see why rocket ships can fly, why we need to
wear a seatbelt, why it is easier to slide on a waxed floor and why it hurts more to be hit
with a more massive object than a less massive object. These contents have already been
taught or seen and we will explore it with a more scientific lense by using terms and
theories such as friction, inertia, and Newtons 2nd Law.
This unit extends to the students lives in more ways. Students will learn how to
measure and conduct a scientific experiment in a group by only having one variable

change. There is also a moral aspect of the lessons for example why we shouldnt lie and
what the consequences are in science. Students also think deeply about how the science
we deal with is never final. The world is too big and beautiful to understand everything in
it so we just model what we can describe. Finally students will get a brief look at the
history of Isaac Newton, the man who fathered modern physics. This material is
appropriate for their age given their previous experiences with physics. Overall this unit
should prepare the students for high school physics by giving them the proper scaffolding
for forces and motion. This unit however has a much more global usage outside of
school.