Unit 1-  WHY DOES AN OBJECT'S MOTION CHANGE? 

What sports and games do you like to play? What objects move in those games? How do they change motion? In this unit, students experience and observe what happens to a soccer ball as they pass it back and forth to a partner at diɼerent distances, then they explore other games such as marbles, ice hockey, and other related phenomena they have experienced. From there, the unit supports students in developing foundational ideas about energy, its relationship to changes in motion and shape, and evidence that energy has been transferred between two objects when they collide. Through a series of investigations, students understand that contact forces between two colliding objects (e.g., a foot and a soccer ball or a ball and a surface) transfer energy from one object to the other, and that increasingly bigger kicks (stronger forces) cause the ball to travel farther and with more speed. Students also investigate how energy transfer occurs when a ball or other moving object slows down as it transfers energy to the surface it is moving on, transferring energy as sound and/or heat to the surroundings in addition to changing motion and shape. As students build their understanding of energy and energy transfer, they ask scientiɶc questions, make predictions related to their questions and the cause-and-eɼect patterns they observe, as well as plan, evaluate, and carry out fair test investigations to gather evidence to support their explanations of phenomena. At the end of the unit, students apply these ideas to a new context as they explain, using evidence, why an object’s motion changes in a game or sport of their choice.