Avery Dutton

Trevor Hancock
ED 457
Professor Belcastro
12 March 2015
Exploring Balanced and Unbalanced Forces
Grade/Subject: Third Grade, Science
Time: Two Hours
Materials:
Parent volunteers
Thick rope
Any materials the students can find in the classroom or outside that they would want to use in
their experiment
Books
Magnets
Library access
Concepts/Skills:
-Researching and collaborating with peers
-Designing an experiment on balanced and unbalanced forces
-Conducting the experiments while forming their own hypothesis and conclusions
Objectives:
-Students will be able to research the balanced and unbalanced forces of nature in groups by
using the internet, books, and collaborating with peers.
-Students will create an experiment in groups to prove the balanced and unbalanced forces of
nature with no errors in their investigation.
Open:
Anticipatory Set: Take the students outside and separate into two teams, and play Tug of War to
introduce the ideas of balanced and unbalanced forces.
-Discuss why one team won, and the other team lost. What does this have to do with balanced
and unbalanced forces?
-Create different varieties of teams to show how unbalanced and balance works when pulling
against each other.
-Tell the students by the end of class they will understand and be able to answer questions about
unbalanced and balanced forces through creating their own experiments in groups.
Body:
Input: Allows students to get into groups of 4 and 5 to begin their research and collaboration.
They are allowed to use the internet, library, books, and have the option to go outside.
-Check in with each group on their research to make sure they are ready to begin creating their
experiments.

Guided practice: Students in their groups create an experiment proving unbalanced forces and
experiment proving balanced forces.
-Once all groups have finished their experiments, the groups rotate to each others experiments to
test them out and form hypotheses about whats going to happen
Close:
Closure: Clean up, put away all materials. Discuss important ideas learned today about balanced
and unbalanced forces.
Independent practice: Ask students to discuss with each other about their own experiments and
other experiments, and how they are all similar. Reflect on the hypotheses that were made and
what the outcome of each experiment was.
-Explain how what we learned today ties in with what we will be continuing tomorrow.
Assessment: Based on the experiments the students have created, we will be able to assess
whether they understand the concepts of balanced and unbalanced forces.
Differentiation: Instead of the students creating their own experiments, the teacher would
already have the experiments created and set up for students to explore on their own.