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A Rolling Reindeer for the Winter Play

Use a table and graph from winter-stage prop tests to explain balanced forces, predict motion, and plan fair investigations.

Grade 3ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned to3-PS2-1

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
14 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 3
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Matching, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use motion data to explain the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces.
Students predict how pulls affect an object's speed and direction.
Students identify fair comparisons and useful measurements in a force investigation.

How to use

Read the investigation together and distinguish distance each second from total distance. Students can complete the investigation on paper without building the prop.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

3-PS2-1

Investigate how balanced and unbalanced forces change, or do not change, an object's motion.

Preview

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Name Date

A Rolling Reindeer for the Winter Play

Use motion records to investigate balanced and unbalanced pulls.

1. Examine the Stage Tests

Read the investigation, table, and graph. Use the recorded evidence to answer.

Testing a Rolling Reindeer

Snow covers the streets around a town's community theater. Inside, Imani's class is helping prepare a winter play. A small cardboard reindeer rides on a wheeled base. The class needs to learn how to control the prop before it goes onstage.

The teacher attaches a string to each end of the base. Matching spring scales show the strength of the left and right pulls. The teacher keeps the strings level and maintains each trial's pulls while students watch. The class uses the same prop, level track, and measuring marks throughout. No passengers or decorations are added.

Students record the direction traveled and the distance covered during separate one-second intervals. Each distance tells how far the prop traveled during that second, not how far it was from the starting mark. For this model, ignore the tiny rubbing force from the wheels. Upward and downward forces balance; compare the left and right pulls.

Trials A and B begin at rest. Trials C, D, and E begin moving right at the same speed: 12 centimeters per second. A and C use matching pulls in opposite directions. In B and E, the teacher keeps the left pull unchanged and increases the right pull to the same stronger setting. In D, the teacher keeps the right pull at its original setting and increases the left pull.