Newton In A Nutshell

By Tanjua Damon

Sir Isaac Newton, the famous physicist who explained the three laws of motion, entered fifth grade classrooms at Head O’ Meadow through hands-on activities that gave the students a physics lesson.

Juliet Stillman of High Touch High Tech brought various experiments to the fifth grade students that helped them understand the three laws: every object at rest stays at rest unless an outside force acts upon it, while every object in motion stays in motion unless an outside force acts upon it; an object acted by constant force moves with constant acceleration in the direction of the force; and every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Physics is the study of things in motion, Miss Stillman told the students. Isaac Newton first explained gravity.

“A lot of famous scientists are physicists,” she said. “And today we are going to be physicists. There are laws of science [and] up until now we have found no ways to break these laws, like the laws of motion.”

Miss Stillman told the students that gravity is a force. The students did an experiment with a cloth and cups and saucers. The students were able to pull the cloth from underneath the cups and saucers, leaving them standing still because of the force of gravity.

Another experiment with a cup, a piece of cardboard, and a quarter was done to show the force of gravity. The students pulled the cardboard away quickly, causing the quarter to fall into the cup because an outside force, gravity, was pulling the quarter down, according to Miss Stillman.

Students also learned about friction. In a book pulling experiment, students learned the strength friction has. Two students tried to pull a book apart but because of the texture of paper, friction made it stronger and harder for the students to pull the books apart.

“Each page has friction,” Miss Stillman said. “The pages are rubbing against each other. Friction magnifies and makes it stronger, or feel stronger.”

The students agreed after trying the experiment.

“It feels like it is glued,” Shannon Cruz said.

“It’s really, really strong,” Colleen Thornberg added.

Isaac Newton’s laws of motion brought eye-opening experiments to the fifth grade students at Head O’ Meadow, beginning many more science lessons to come and leaving them as physicists in action.