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Middle School

Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions

 

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations
 

 

Apply Newton’s Third Law to design a solution to a problem involving the motion of two colliding objects. MS-PS2-1

Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

Clarification Statement: Examples of practical problems could include the impact of collisions between two cars, between a car and stationary objects, and between a meteor and a space vehicle.

Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to vertical or horizontal interactions in one dimension.

Science and Engineering Practices

Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions

Constructing explanations and designing solutions in 6–8 builds on K–5 experiences and progresses to include constructing explanations and designing solutions supported by multiple sources of evidence consistent with scientific ideas, principles, and theories.

Apply scientific ideas or principles to design an object, tool, process or system. (MS-PS2-1)

Disciplinary Core Ideas

PS2.A:  Forces and Motion

For any pair of interacting objects, the force exerted by the first object on the second object is equal in strength to the force that the second object exerts on the first, but in the opposite direction (Newton’s third law). (MS-PS2-1)

Crosscutting Concepts

Systems and System Models

Models can be used to represent systems and their interactions—such as inputs, processes and outputs—and energy and matter flows within systems. (MS-PS2-1)

Common Core State Standards Connections

ELA/Literacy
  • RST.6-8.1 - Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts. (MS-PS2-1)
  • RST.6-8.3 - Follow precisely a multistep procedure when carrying out experiments, taking measurements, or performing technical tasks. (MS-PS2-1)
  • WHST.6-8.7 - Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration. (MS-PS2-1)
Mathematics
  • 6.EE.A.2 - Write, read, and evaluate expressions in which letters stand for numbers. (MS-PS2-1)
  • 6.NS.C.5 - Understand that positive and negative numbers are used together to describe quantities having opposite directions or values (e.g., temperature above/below zero, elevation above/below sea level, credits/debits, positive/negative electric charge); use positive and negative numbers to represent quantities in real-world contexts, explaining the meaning of 0 in each situation. (MS-PS2-1)
  • 7.EE.B.3 - Solve multi-step real-life and mathematical problems posed with positive and negative rational numbers in any form (whole numbers, fractions, and decimals), using tools strategically. Apply properties of operations to calculate with numbers in any form; convert between forms as appropriate; and assess the reasonableness of answers using mental computation and estimation strategies. (MS-PS2-1)
  • 7.EE.B.4 - Use variables to represent quantities in a real-world or mathematical problem, and construct simple equations and inequalities to solve problems by reasoning about the quantities. (MS-PS2-1)
  • MP.2 - Reason abstractly and quantitatively. (MS-PS2-1)