How the World Works, Unit Overview 1

Laws of MotionCentral Idea: Understanding and applying force and motion enables work to be completed more efficiently.

Concepts

FunctionCausation Connection

Related Concepts

EfficiencyWorkForce

Lines of Inquiry

1.Forces and Motion (function)

Lines of Inquiry cont...

2.How force and motion affect us and other matter (causation)

3.How applying our understanding of force and motion can increase efficiency (connection)

Enduring Understandings

When we apply our knowledge of physics we can improve efficiency

Knowledge

1.Forces, types of motion and how they work

2.Unit related Vocabulary

3.Simple Machines

Teacher Questions

Why is it so?

Prove it (using scientific method)

What is work?

What do we Want to Learn? Our Concepts, Lines of Inquiry, Enduring Understandings, and Knowledge

Students participate in a number of experiments to test their laws and

hypotheses.

H O W T H E W O R L D W O R K S

Teacher Questions, Attitudes, Learner Profile, and Skills

Attitudes

Curiosity

Cooperation

Learner Profile

Inquirer

Knowledgeable

Skills

Communication: Writing

Thinking: Acquisition of Knowledge and Analysis

Social: Cooperation, Adopting a Variety of Roles, Group Decision Making and Accepting Responsibility

Unit Vocabulary

Force

Mass

Friction

Inertia

Weight

Length

Height

Width

Unit Vocabulary

Hypothesis

Purpose

Method

Procedure

Conclusion

Observations

Acceleration

Deceleration

Pulley

Lever

Fulcrum

Effort

Efficiency

Work

Laws

Motion

Balanced

Unbalanced

Wedge

Inclined Plane

Wheel

Axle

Action

Reaction

H O W T H E W O R L D W O R K S

2 How the World Works, Unit Overview

How You Can Help at Home

Parents can help their children at home by encouraging them to test the laws that they have written. Simply pointing out the flaws in their ideas, or telling them about the laws created by prominent thinkers of our time does nothing to help the students think deeply, analyze, test and draw conclusions.

Prompt students to create scenarios to test their theories and encourage them to record their results using proper scientific method. Question their findings and encourage them to share their results with their peers.

Assessment

Assessment will be based on understanding of the central idea, lines of inquiry, concepts, enduring understanding, knowledge and skills. Many of the learning engagements will be recorded in each students’ process journal, including their observations and notes and their own laws of motion, which will change and be updated throughout the unit.

Students will be assessed on their ability to write scientific method and procedural text, as well as their ability to find patterns, collect data and measure during the experiments carried out.

Action

Students can take action by testing their laws at home and by bringing in books and tools to carry out experiments in the class.

Students are encouraged to show others’ demonstrations of physics experiments relating to motion and to create their own simple machines.

Students can contribute by adding to their wikis and creating a database of websites and books that can be used throughout the unit.

An inquiry into the natural world and its laws; the interaction between the natural world (physical and biological)

and human societies; how humans use their understanding of scientific principals; the impact of scientific and

technological advances on society and on the environment.