Lesson Plan

Date Lesson Title Unit

10/25/2020 Newton’s Second Law Inquiry Investigation Dynamics

Next Generation Lesson Objectives

Science Standard
NGSS: HS-PS2-1  I can design an investigation including clear data collecting
procedures, a scientifically appropriate investigative question, and
a clear analysis of gathered observational or measured data to
qualitatively and quantitatively determine the relationship between
the inertial mass, the net force, and its acceleration.

Lesson Opening
(5 min) Warm-Up –
Ranking exercise for students with a two-body system will be presented. Students will
determine their response and a teacher will randomly select a student to offer their response.

Main Lesson
(15 min) Introduction –
Teacher reminds students of the concepts related to the acceleration of an object in terms of
net force and inertial mass. Begins instruction by showing them the expected setup of the
materials for the investigation to take place. The template is shared with the students so that
they can access definitions and the appropriate structure for the lab.
(5 min) Investigative Question –
Teacher asks students to list possible measurements that could be made and act as variables
for the investigation. If students struggle with suggestions, teacher can ask guiding questions:
 What can be measured with the tools we have?
 What are values we have dealt with previously?
 What could we change by modifying the setup?
Teacher lists suggestions and narrows them down to which values might be useful.
(5 min) Group Work –
Students are given instructions to form small groups and given an initial task to write an
appropriately worded investigative question.
(15 min) Procedure –
Students develop a procedure to collect the relevant data to answer the investigative
question. Students are instructed to come up with a procedure and get teacher approval
before the end of the allotted time. Otherwise, students will finish developing their procedure
as homework independently and get approval the next class meeting.
While students are doing this, the teacher will rotate among groups checking for progress and
offering guidance. To facilitate, teacher should use guiding questions:
 What are you measuring?
 How are you measuring it?
 How many times do you think you should measure it?
 What are you changing?
  How many times are you going to change it?
 Are all your steps necessary to include?
Lesson Closure
(5 min) Sharing –
Teacher asks specific groups who made good progress to share out some of the specific
points of their procedure. This ensures students have made adequate progress and can self-
evaluate their procedures by comparing to their peers’.

Resources
Lab Template: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ifafw2GitKv4XsEuc0PWfMR97qiXOtD-
_JiLAaMeQJw/edit?usp=sharing