PhET Simulation: Newton's Laws of Motion

The primary goal of this activity is for your students to gain a deeper understanding of Newton’s first and second laws of motion. This is a great guided inquiry activity for investigating acceleration, balanced and unbalanced forces, and their effect on the motion of objects. After completion of this activity your students will be ready to start quantitative analysis of the motion of objects using Newton’s second law equation, F = m • a.

I use this activity after my students have completed my Forces and Motion PhET Online Lab.

This online lab activity uses the Forces and Motion: Basics HTML5 simulation from PhET Interactive Simulations. The simulation can be run from most cell phones, tablets and computers. Nothing to download or install.

PhET simulations incorporate research based, student centered activities that are fun and easy to use. All of the PhET simulations are available from this website: PhET Interactive Simulations.

This product includes:
(1) The activity worksheets.
(2) An answer key for the worksheets.
(3) Notes covering a full description of Newton’s laws of motion.