UMUC – MAT Program

Annotated Lesson Plan Format

Name: Brent Bian Grade: Various

Unit: Forces Time Allotted: 46 mins

Lesson Topic: Newton’s Laws of Motion

Context for Learning: The purpose of the lesson is to introduce the topic of forces. The only prior
knowledge students are expected to have is from personal life experiences. They should know a bit about
gravity because we used it to calculate free fall acceleration problems. Technologies available include the
promethean board, chromebooks, and student’s personal cellphones.

Curriculum and SPA Standards Addressed:

HS-PS2-1 Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions

“Analyze data to support the claim that Newton’s second law of motion describes the mathematical
relationship among the net force on a macroscopic object, its mass, and its acceleration

Objectives (observable and measurable): Students will be able to recall and apply Newton’s 3 laws of
motions.

Materials: Paper, pencils, Powerpoint slides with videos, internet access

Proactive Behavior Management: Students will be asked to put away their phones and earphones. Seats
are assigned. Bathroom pass will not be given out 10 minutes to the end or start of the class. Student’s
know to exchange their phones for the bathroom pass.

Procedures (for each, indicate amount of time allotted)

Introductory

• Warm-Up/Opening (may be Motivator) (6 minutes): The opening warmup will include student’s
discussion about what forces are. They will pair up and share their ideas with one another. During
this time, I will be taking attendance. After I finish attendance, I will then open up a class
discussion about what forces are.

1
 • I will then show a video from star wars jedi using the force. I will explain that such a force does not
exist, but it does give a sense of what a force is. A force is some kind of push or pull on an object

Notes on forces with activities (40 minutes):

• Sir Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642 in England. As the story goes, he was sitting
under an apple tree when one day an apple fell on his head and caused him to wonder “Why do
apples always fall straight down to the ground?” We don’t know if this story was actually true, but
Newton did find many of his inspirations from Nature. Newton was the one who gave definition to
gravity. He was also the one who invented calculus and coined the 3 laws of motion.
• Newton’s First law of motion: An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in
motion unless acted upon by an external force.
o What this first part is saying is that an object at rest will not move, unless I move it. Makes
sense right?
o Now what about an object in motion stays at motion. Apparently, once I set this in motion,
it should stay in motion. So why does it not?
▪ Because of friction!
▪ Because of the force of gravity pulling down on objects, they will always rub against
stuff, causing friction, and so motion will eventually stop. Newton however, realized
that if something were in a vacuum and was not effected by gravity, it would move
forever, until another force caused it to stop.
o Show video
• Newton’s Second law of motion: The force acting on an object is equal to the mass of that object
times its acceleration. In written form, the equation looks like this:
o F=ma. Memorize this equation because we will use and abuse it. We will spend more time
on this equation next lesson. The units for forces is kgm/s^2, or a Newton (N). Scientist
love naming their own discoveries and concepts after themselves. Hopefully someday, you
can do that too.
• Newton’s Third law of motion: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
o Say one day I see one of you on your phones and I get so angry that I throw it against the
wall, and it smashes into smithereens. I threw the phone with some kind of force so we can
all agree that the phone itself had a force, but why then does the phone get smashed?
Because once the phone made contact with the wall, the phone applied a force onto the
wall, but the wall applied the same amount of force onto the phone. It’s the same reason
why we are able to bounce a basketball. When I force the ball down, the ground will exert
a force onto the ball and bounce it back upwards. Has anyone ever punched anyone in the
face? Well, don’t try it, because although you’ll be applying a lot of force to their face, their
face will be applying an equal amount of force to your fist, and it will hurt your fist a lot.
2
 • A force is either a push or pull on an object.
• There are 4 main force in this world. Gravitational, weak nuclear, electromagnetic, and strong
nuclear. Gravitational forces are the weakest and Strong Nuclear forces are the strongest.

• Think pair share.

o Q: Which falls faster, a baseball or a crumpled piece of paper?

o Raise of hands: Who thinks crumpled paper? Who thinks baseball?
o Demonstrate: Stand on chair/table, drop crumpled paper
o Q: Say that I drop a piece of uncrumpled paper. Why does it fall slower than a crumpled
piece of paper?
o Show video

Guided Practice and Independent Tasks

• Independent Tasks: Work on any review problems for tomorrows test.

3
4
5
6
7
8
9