Education Standards

Forces and Motion Activity

National Science Education Standards (NSES)
Physical Science (5-8)
Motions and Forces

• An object that is not being subjected to a force will continue to move at a constant speed and in a straight line.
• If more than one force acts on an object along a straight line, then the forces will reinforce or cancel one another, depending on their direction and magnitude. Unbalanced forces will cause changes in the speed or direction of an object's motion.

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Benchmarks for Science Literacy
The Physical Setting
Motion (3-5)
Changes in speed or direction of motion are caused by forces. The greater the force is, the greater the change in motion will be. The more massive an object is, the less effect a given force will have.

Motion (6-8)
An unbalanced force acting on an object changes its speed or direction of motion, or both.

Systems Activity

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Benchmarks for Science Literacy
11. Common Themes
A. Systems (3-5)

• In something that consists of many parts, the parts usually influence one another.
• Something may not work as well (or at all) if a part of it is missing, broken, worn out, mismatched, or misconnected.

A. Systems (6-8)

• Thinking about things as systems means looking for how every part relates to others. The output from one part of a system (which can include material, energy, or information) can become the input to other parts. Such feedback can serve to control what goes on in the system as a whole.
• Any system is usually connected to other systems, both internally and externally. Thus a system may be thought of as containing subsystems and as being a subsystem of a larger system.

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