This resource accompanies our Rethink 5th Grade Science course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning. 

This lesson combines the science standards for force and motion with an engineering activity. Students will design a car from cardboard straws. Coffee stirs tape, balloon, and bottle lids. ( students can choose which types of wheels). Students will race the cars with classmates to determine which is the fastest.

Students design and build a balloon-powered car to better understand the science ideas related to rocket propulsion. They use ideas of mass and force to work out ways to improve the distance traveled by the car.

Can your group make a balloon to look like a favorite book character, famous person or Superhero which will be driven by a Sphero and Sphero Chariot?

Students will be able to:make and document scientific observations in order to compare the effects of different materials on an object's movement using Sphero Bolt coding robots. 

Students will be able to: carry out an investigation by designing and building a roller coaster to understand how force, motion, gravity, friction, and changes in mass affect the motion of various size/weight balls.

Dancing Dash!
Create a dance for Dash to do along with students to demonstrate mastery of Math (addition/subtraction) and Science (motion/force).

Students practice using the equation distance = rate x time using trajectory data from the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission.

In this activity, students explore how two cylinders that look the same may roll down a hill at different rates.

Students will calculate the time it takes for Arctic terns at a given average migration speed.

In this lesson, students will discover the results of force applied to an object using balls of varying weights.

This is a 5th grade unit for Science.  This unit helps students develop their understanding of force, motion, and the relationship between them as well as how factors such as gravity, friction, and change in mass affect the motion of objects. 

In this activity, students will observe short and long sprint drill results from two different players on the team. Students will calculate the players' speeds in meters per second for each sprint, then calculate average speed.

This Nearpod lesson is focused on time-distance graphing, where students are comparing the graph to written scenarios.

Students work in groups of 2 to create an anchor out of a collection of materials provided by the teacher. Students will test their anchors in an aquarium periodically to determine if their anchor has too much surface area, thus making it buoyant, or if the materials are combined in a way that is denser than the water causing the anchor to sink. The ultimate goal is to balance the forces being applied to the boat.  The anchor is attached to a 3d printed boat, or a boat of the teacher's choosing. A fan is directed at the boat after the anchor has been attached and dropped in the water. In addition to the wind, the teacher will create waves by tapping the side of the tank. Students will observe if the anchor holds under these circumstances or not. Ultimately, they will try to prevent the boat from moving at all. Distance traveled for each test will be taken by a meter stick or tape measure fixed to the side of the tank. Students will strive to keep the boat frozen at 0 centimeters.

Students will design their own spacecraft to investigate how different atmospheric densities will affect the speed of descent through the atmosphere (modeled using glycerol). Students will drop their spacecraft models down through the "atmosphere" and time how long it takes to land on the surface.

In this lesson, students will investigate motion and speed of toy cars. Observations and predictions of various variables (type, size of toy) will be made with other student groups. Critical thinking will be applied while discussing the reliability of the investigation. Speed, constant speed, average speed, and acceleration will be investigated and recorded using data graphs.

This lesson is the first of a two-part series on the science of hurricanes and the kinds of technology being used to identify and track them. In this activity students examine different scientific aspects of hurricanes, all in an effort to begin to understand the nature of motion?particularly how changes in speed or direction of motion are caused by forces.

In this lesson, students will work in small groups to experience friction in action as they investigate the movement of toy cars. Students use the scientific process to hypothesize and then test how toy cars travel down ramps using differing variables such as mass and types of materials. They also review and share their results with the class.

In this activity, students will make and test their own sailboats for speed, direction of sailboats, and carrying weight.