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Exploring Time and Sequence

Investigation 3 CAP

 

ZERO-IN

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BRANCH OUT

Explain to students that engineers use forces to push and pull and change the direction of moving things all the time when they design machines. In addition, many different occupations involve the physical application of force to push and pull objects such as loads of bricks and lumber at construction sites. We will also see that athletes use push and pull forces all the time when they play their sport.

 

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SLIDE TIME-3-1

This short CAP is simply to have students consider the pushes and pulls that they see in everyday life. This is of course a very early introduction to the concept of force. Force is a basic science concept that will be developed in your students’ science education for many years to come. At this point, however, we would just like for students to be able to identify pushes and pulls and the way that applying a push or a pull (applying force) can change the direction of a moving object, cause an object to move, or stop a moving object.

SLIDE TIME-3-2

This slide is included to remind students of the simple swing simulation that they experienced in the Investigation 3 lab. While in the lab, the primary discussion was not about the forces involved in the swing’s motion. In this CAP, we will build on the experience to simply introduce the notion of pushing and pulling force.

SLIDE TIME-3-3

Young students are much more likely to think of how hard or easy something is to push or pull rather than how much force is applied to push or pull. In discussing this slide, students should be able to correctly suggest that the big bear would be harder to push or pull.

Note: The big bear would appear harder to push or pull on the swing because it would require more force to be pushed or pulled. This concept is demonstrated in a simple experiment introduced on the next slide.

SLIDE TIME-3-4

This simple experiment should be performed by pairs of students in the classroom. By using their muscles and own body weight, students will discover the increased physical effort (force) to push or pull the chair with a student sitting in it as compared to the empty chair.

Note: Notice that the two questions are stated slightly differently (…easier to push versus …harder to pull) so that students can hear the words used in different combinations.

SLIDE TIME-3-5

This is another fast and fun experiment. Here we simply want to show students that by applying a force (pushing the paper ball across the floor) and then the other student pushing the ball again when it comes near him or her, that the ball’s direction can be changed.

SLIDE TIME-3-5

This final slide shows an example of pushing that occurs in the sport of baseball. The pitcher uses force to push the ball toward the batter. The batter uses force to push the ball in a different direction.

Perhaps you could ask students to think of other examples of pushes and pulls that they are familiar with. For example, pulling on a doorknob, kicking (pushing) a soccer ball, pushing the peddle on a bicycle, and so on.