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  • Acceleration and Mass

    Book Chapter |

    Although this lab is not an inquiry activity, it is very important in learning about acceleration and mass. It is a deeply held misconception among students that objects of different masses fall at different rates.…

  • Center of Mass 1

    Book Chapter |

    This activity will help students see that a low center of mass helps objects balance. This is important engineering in car and motorcycle racing and robotics. This activity is inquiry in that students would probably…

  • Center of Mass 2

    Book Chapter |

    This activity is inquiry because students have likely never used this method for determining center of mass. The activity is also useful when building soda bottle rockets for estimating the center of pressure. Students…

  • Center of Mass 3

    Book Chapter |

    This lab is an inquiry activity if it is done before the discussion of how center of mass and balance are related. However, students should have an idea of what center of mass is before they start the lab. Students…

  • Mass and Weight

    Book Chapter |

    This chapter from, Companion Classroom Activities for Stop Faking It! Force and Motion is about mass and weight. The activity in this chapter is Mass and Weight.

  • Moving Masses

    Book Chapter |

    The air inside a cloud can be very different from the air outside the cloud, not only because of the presence of cloud droplets and increased water vapor, but also in terms of density and temperature. In this Activity,…

  • Leave It to the Masses

    Book Chapter |

    In this lesson, students in a class are invited to help report the weather on TV and need to learn about air masses and how they help predict the weather. Key words and concepts covered are air masses, weather, and…

  • Mysterious Mass

    Book Chapter |

    In this problem, the challenge to students is to determine in what ways are the matter and energy changes in burning wood similar to and different from those in burning food for energy? What are the matter and energy…

  • Earth’s Mass

    Book Chapter |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the cycling of matter. It can be used to determine whether students recognize that once-living matter breaks down and cycles through ecosystems…

  • Measuring Mass

    Book Chapter |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about mass. It is designed to find out if students understand the difference between mass and other properties. The probe is best used with students in…

  • Force, Mass, and Acceleration

    Book Chapter |

    The purpose of this lab is to introduce students to the core idea of forces and motion by having them determine ”What Is the Mathematical Relationship Among the Net Force Exerted on an Object, the Object’s Inertial Mass…

  • Mass, Volume, and Density

    Book Chapter |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about density. It is designed to find out whether students have commonly held ideas about mass, volume, shape, and other properties that interfere with…

  • Average Atomic Mass Simulation

    Book Chapter |

    In this activity, students will use a large number of small objects to find the average mass of the objects.

  • Chemical and Biological Weapons of Mass Destruction

    Book Chapter |

    Chemical warfare began in prehistoric times with the use of such weapons as poisoned arrows. However, World War I was the beginning of modern-day chemical warfare. The birth of biological warfare evolved during World…

  • Mass Extinction and Meteor Collisions With Earth

    Book Chapter |

    Paleontologists divide extinctions into two broad categories—background extinctions and mass extinctions. Background extinctions occur continuously while mass extinctions are unusual in that they involve very large…

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