Objects move in different ways during physical activities on the playground.
Analyze and interpret data to determine patterns and cause and effect to predict the motion of a soccer ball based on force strength and to apply the data to an engineering design.
A kicked soccer ball on the playground didn’t make it all the way into the goal.
Click here for NGSS, CCSS–ELA and Math, and California ELD standards.
In Lesson 2: Forces Move Objects, students created models to show balanced and unbalanced forces based on knowledge gained through basketball experiences. Students investigated the effect of strength and direction on the speed and distance traveled by the basketball.
In this lesson, students build on these fundamental understandings of force and motion and apply them to a soccer ball. They analyze and interpret data about how the strength of the force impacts the distance the soccer ball moves. They apply the patterns of motion to predict team players and their success for a new soccer game for the new playground. In the next lesson, students continue to think about balanced and unbalanced forces as well as strength and direction as they complete a tug-of-war activity.
Throughout the lesson, a flag () denotes formative assessment opportunities where you may change instruction in response to students’ level of understanding and making sense of phenomena.
Part I | 30 minutes | Engage |
Part II | 45 minutes | Explore 1/Explain 1 |
Part IIIa | 60 minutes | Explore 2/Explain 2 |
Part IIIb | 45 minutes | Explore 3/Explain 3 |
Part IV | 45 minutes | Explain 4 |
Part V | 60 minutes | Elaborate/Evaluate |
Communicate information about how unbalanced forces move a basketball and how the same cause and effect can predict movement in a soccer ball.
If your students do not know about soccer, explain the game to them by showing one of the video clips of a soccer game (Step 7 in Advance Preparation) so that they understand the game.
Make observations to determine the types of data and patterns that are needed to design a new soccer game.
Set up two or three different soccer goals. Place each soccer ball in a different location 50 feet from the goal. If you don’t have a soccer ball, a kickball will work. If you don’t have a soccer goal, you can use two orange cones, two small trash cans, two brightly colored sticks, or anything else to create goalposts for the students to kick the ball between.
Represent data in tables to find patterns in the strength of a kick (force) on the soccer ball.
If this is the first time students are converting raw data into a table, model how to create a table with a title and labeled columns. In this case, the labeled columns are: name, distanced (yards) traveled in kick #1, distance (yards) traveled in kick #2, distance (yards) traveled in kick #3.
Alternatively, have students create their own data table to enter the data. Then select a few to put under the doc camera to discuss the variety of formats, entries on the data table, and what the tables reveals about patterns.
This discussion is trying to give students an intuitive sense of what an average is. Averaging is a sixth-grade CCSS, and third graders are not expected to calculate it. However, in real life, they have probably heard the term (e.g., in sports) and through a discussion of analyzing data, students can understand that they could “even” up the kicking distances.
If students don’t understand, work an example with them: Miquel kicks 20 feet, 19 feet and 18 feet. To make them three lengths even, you can take one of the 20 math counting manipulatives and put it on the 18 pile. Now all three piles are even, so the number in the “even” column would be 19. The answers are in the “average” column on 3.3.R2: Possible Team Combinations.
This discussion is important for students to understand the importance of conducting multiple trials. Scientists will look for patterns in the data collected. Patterns can be used as evidence to support an explanation.
Represent data in a graph to find patterns in the strength of a kick (force) on the soccer ball.
If students have little experience with graphing, it is important to take the time here to discuss different types of graphs (e.g., bar, line, pie, line plots) and help students understand that this data is best displayed as a line plot because it is comparing categories (yards the ball traveled and the number of people who kicked that far). See 3.3.R1: Line Plot Example. Model setting up the graph with a title and labeling the axis, etc. For this graph, the horizontal axis (the x-axis) is labeled with the number of yards the ball traveled and the vertical axis (the y-axis) is the number of people who kicked at that distance.
Analyze and interpret patterns in data to predict how to play the game using logic and mathematics.
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Any path that is not a straight line (has a change of direction) is more than the distance to the goal. Students should focus on how to select the teams that can kick more than 40 yards to accommodate the change in direction; for example, they may need to kick a total of 50 yards to complete the task.
See 3.3.R2: Possible Team Combinations as an example of possible teams to kick at 50 and 70 yards. These are not the only combinations that work.
Communicate information about how the cause and effect of the strength of forces can be predicted and used to design a new soccer game.