Newton’s Laws of Motion

We stepped into sixth grade recently to find them learning about Newton’s Laws of Motion.

But it wasn’t just any science class. The Kitsune created flipbooks to illustrate their understanding of these universal laws.

The first law of motion is that an object in motion stays in motion. An object at rest stays at rest, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Kitsune teacher, Jenny, created these incredible posters that illustrated Newton’s laws.

 

Newton’s Second Law of Motion

The second law of motion is that Force (f) = mass (m) x acceleration (a).

 

Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion

The third law of motion is that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Science and Rollercoasters

A day earlier, students created a marble roller coaster. They were applying the principles of what they had learned about energy and the laws of motion, specifically, Newton’s 2nd law. Their challenge was to build a roller coaster that would allow the speed of a marble to speed up or slow down using inclines, different materials or textures, and the like.

Persistence of Vision

Before diving into flipbooks, the Kitsune recently spent part of their morning talking about the “persistence of vision” in which students brainstormed some concepts about what this was. Persistence of vision, as it relates to animation and film, includes three main ideas:

  1. optical illusion
  2. the human eye can process 10-12 images per second
  3. the faster the images go, the more they seem to be in motion

That is, the human eye effectively “retains” an image up to a fifteenth of a second. If you “speed up” looking at different images, they will appear to move due to this phenomenon.

To illustrate this, Jenny, had students create and imagine a few drawings of what “running” would look like.

 

They had a chance to see different examples of flipbooks.

 

After they got all inspired, Jenny showed them what a story board looked like.

Their objective: create a 30-page flip book that illustrates the principles of Newton’s Laws of Motion.

Students would also need to write a paragraph explaining the action that happens their flip book, as well as how the action illustrated Newton’s laws of motion.

We’ll update here when we see the final flipbook creations students have created.