Sports Physics Grades 6 to 8
Turn the backyard into a physics field: speed, forces, gravity, friction, energy and collisions measured with a ball, a tape measure and a timer, with Rocket, Raven and Nova.
Free, start to finish. No card. Every week opens without signing in.
- Grade
- Grades 6 to 8
- Length
- 12 weeks
- Pace
- 6 short lessons a week, about 20 minutes each
- Price
- Free, every week
About this course
Sports Physics Grades 6 to 8 is a 12-week forces, motion and energy course for middle schoolers that uses only things a family already has: a soft ball, a tape measure, a timer, masking tape, a cardboard ramp, a rubber band and a fridge magnet. Students set up the Field at home and keep a Field Log. Week by week they measure speed, test balanced and unbalanced forces, see how mass changes motion, time falling objects and read planet gravity from NASA data, compare friction on different surfaces, find out how mass and speed change kinetic energy, store energy with height and stretch, follow energy through a bounce, meet action and reaction with a balloon rocket, explore magnets and static as forces at a distance, and track the arc of a thrown ball. The course ends with a landing pad designed, built, tested and improved at the Field. Short daily lessons with checked answers, a hands-on Field Lab each week and a Saturday Game Day for the family. 100% free, start to finish.
Kids will
- Measure speed as distance divided by time and describe motion from a chosen frame of reference
- Explain how balanced and unbalanced forces, and an object's mass, change its motion
- Give evidence that gravity pulls objects together and depends on mass, and compare friction and air resistance on different surfaces
- Describe how kinetic energy depends on mass and speed and how energy is stored by height and stretch
- Trace energy transfers through a bounce, a collision and a stop, and show action and reaction in a collision
- Design, test and improve a landing pad using criteria and constraints, and write a report from Field data
The 12 weeks
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Week 1
Measuring Motion
Speed is distance divided by time
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Week 2
Pushes, Pulls and Balanced Forces
What changes a motion, and what leaves it alone
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Week 3
Mass Matters
The same push, a different result
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Week 4
Gravity Pulls
The force that brings every ball back down
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Week 5
Friction and Air
The forces that slow things down
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Week 6
Kinetic Energy: Mass and Speed
The energy of motion
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Week 7
Potential Energy: Height and Stretch
Energy that waits
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Week 8
Bounce, Roll and Stop
Where the energy goes
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Week 9
Action and Reaction
Every push has a push back
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Week 10
Forces Without Touching
Magnets, charges and fields
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Week 11
Throws and Arcs
Forward motion meets gravity
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Week 12
Design a Landing Pad
Criteria, constraints, build, test, improve
Try Week 1 today.
Open the course, pick Day 1 and go. Make a free parent account when you want progress saved for each kid.