Physics is the study of matter — what is it made of? How does it behave? What laws or equations describe it? From subatomic particles, to the Big Bang, modern physicists study matter at a tremendous range of scales. There's a whole lot of interesting physics at the human scale, too.
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| Featured Take the Science Buddies Engineering Challenge! Try the annual Engineering Challenge from Science Buddies! Open to all students worldwide, a new challenge and prizes are announced every January. Explore the current challenge as well as ones from past years! Read more
Rubber Band Car Challenge for Grades 6-8 Log in to add favorite More Menu
Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th 1 2 3 4 5 7 reviews In this fun engineering lesson plan, your students will build rubber band-powered cars using readily available craft supplies. The challenge is to build a car that goes as far as possible while making careful use of materials. Elementary school and high school versions of this lesson plan are also available. You can enter your students' designs in the 2024 Science Buddies Engineering Challenge for a chance to win a cash prize for your school. Read more NGSS Performance Expectations:
Featured Science Project Pathways
Try our new Science Project Pathways in Google Classroom. One tool to plan, assign, and manage a science project in your class. Simply enter the project start date to get a customizable science project schedule that breaks the science project into a series of smaller more manageable assignments to keep students on track. The assignments use Science Buddies guide to the scientific method to take students step-by-step through a science project. From the schedule, teachers can make assignments in Google Classroom and view student progress on each assignment. Paper Roller Coasters: Kinetic and Potential Energy Log in to add favorite More Menu
Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th 1 2 3 4 5 21 reviews What goes up, must come down in this thrill-seeking lesson plan! How much energy does a roller coaster car need to make it through a loop? In this lesson your students will learn about kinetic and potential energy as they build their own roller coasters from simple classroom materials. Read more NGSS Performance Expectations:
Solve a Mirror Maze Challenge with the Law of Reflection Log in to add favorite More Menu
Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th 1 2 3 4 5 13 reviews When light interacts with an object, it can be absorbed, transmitted, or reflected. This lesson focuses on materials that reflect light. Specifically, students will use mirrors and flashlights to investigate how light is reflected from a surface. By doing that, they will discover that when a light ray hits a reflective surface, its angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection, which is stated by the law of reflection. Students will then use their gained knowledge in a mirror maze… Read more NGSS Performance Expectations:
Design a Paper Airplane Launcher Log in to add favorite More Menu
Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th 1 2 3 4 5 7 reviews Aircraft carriers are much shorter than a typical airport runway. How do airplanes manage to gain enough speed for takeoff over such a short distance? A catapult gives them an extra boost! In this lesson, your students will practice engineering design as they build their own paper airplane launchers, while learning about kinetic and potential energy. Read more NGSS Performance Expectations:
Build a Recycling-Sorting Machine Log in to add favorite More Menu
Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th 1 2 3 4 5 5 reviews In this lesson plan, your students will build their own recycling sorting machines that use various methods, like magnets or puffs of air, to separate shreds of paper from paper clips. This lesson is inspired by the real-world engineering challenge of separating various materials, like paper, plastic, and metals, that get combined in single-stream recycling programs. Read more NGSS Performance Expectations:
Study Kinetic Energy with a Rube Goldberg Machine Log in to add favorite More Menu
Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th 1 2 3 4 5 1 review Rube Goldberg machines—machines that complete a simple task in a convoluted way—are intriguing, artistic, and fun! In this lesson, students will design and build such a machine themselves and use the concept of kinetic energy in the process. Before students start designing, they will do an experiment that explores how kinetic energy depends on the mass and the speed of the moving object. With a clear understanding of this concept, students then tackle the engineering design… Read more NGSS Performance Expectations:
Engineering Car Crash Safety with Newton's Third Law Log in to add favorite More Menu
Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th 1 2 3 4 5 4 reviews Combine Newton's third law of motion with engineering design in one fun lesson! Your students will learn about equal and opposite reaction forces as they design and build a bumper to protect a toy car during a crash. Read more NGSS Performance Expectations:
Two-Stage Balloon Rocket Log in to add favorite More Menu
Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th 1 2 3 4 5 5 reviews Learn about real space flight and Newton's laws of motion with this fun lesson! This new twist on a classic project lets your students build a multi-stage balloon rocket that they can launch across the classroom. Read more NGSS Performance Expectations:
Paper Ball Run Challenge for Grades 6-8 Log in to add favorite More Menu
Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th Add a twist to a classic activity with this fun lesson plan. Your students will design and build a ball run for a ping pong ball using nothing but paper and tape. Their goal is to make the slowest ball run possible. How long can they make it take for the ball to go through their ball run? The 2022 competition is over, but you can see what students built and learn about the winners on the2022 Engineering Challenge summary page. Teachers, note that elementary and high school … Read more NGSS Performance Expectations:
Modeling Gravity Log in to add favorite More Menu
Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th 1 2 3 4 5 3 reviews Why can we feel gravity pull us down towards the Earth, but not sideways towards other big objects like buildings? Why do the planets in our solar system orbit the sun instead of flying off into space? In this lesson plan your students will develop a model for gravity and use it to explore answers to these questions. Read more NGSS Performance Expectations:
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