This is an inquiry activity that relies of pervious understanding of balancing and weighing to introduce a properties of air.

This lesson is a classroom activity where students learn to use their balance knowledge to create a beautiful mobile.

Video lesson intended for grades 3-5 with a mindfulness moment, warmup, instruction and practice of basic balance and transfer of weight movements, and a sequence of two movements. Video is 15:48 minutes in length.Video created by Virginia's Chief Movement Officers cadre in collaboration with Focused Fitness, Virginia Department of Health, and Virginia Department of Education.

Play with objects on a teeter totter to learn about balance. Test what you've learned by trying the Balance Challenge game.

In this quick and simple activity, learners explore how the distribution of the mass of an object determines the position of its center of gravity, its angular momentum, and your ability to balance it. Learners discover it is easier to balance a wooden dowel on the tip of their fingers when a lump of clay is near the top of the stick. Use this activity to introduce learners to rotational inertia.

To display the results from the previous activity, each student designs and constructs a mobile that contains a duplicate of his or her original box, the new cube-shaped box of the same volume, the scraps that are left over from the original box, and pertinent calculations of the volumes and surface areas involved. They problem solve and apply their understanding of see-saws and lever systems to create balanced mobiles.

Here’s an easy way to find the center of gravity of a long, thin object, even if the object’s weight is unevenly distributed.

This video is part of the Learn and Grow with WHRO TV series. Watch Xenia Clare teach about strategies to determine equality in equations.

This resource is a remix from Illustrative Mathematics (https://goopenva.org/courses/3-md-how-heavy). This resource encourages student collaboration and allows students to have a mathematical dialogue as express their understanding of units of measure. Teachers can use objects found around the house to demonstrate mathematics in the real world. I like how this resource adds flexibility in instruction, as it allows teachers to creatively add diverse manipulatives or real-life items on the balance scale. This activity scaffolds the learning process allowing students an opportunity to experience active hands-on learning to strengthen their understanding of mathematical concepts, which provides a diverse learning experience. This resource is a valuable part of building background when introducing units of measure or equations in the early elementary years of mathematics education as it provides students a concrete example of building an equation with concrete objects.  Suggested Modification - A student recording sheet with illustrations has been added to the resource to allow all different types of learner to learn from a concrete idea to strengthen conceptual learning about building an equation. 

This activity can be conducted in the classroom. The students are given an opportunity to discover the basic concept of balance/counterbalance and how evenly distributed weight affects an object.

The application of engineering principles is explored in the creation of mobiles. As students create their own mobiles, they take into consideration the forces of gravity and convection air currents. They learn how an understanding of balancing forces is important in both art and engineering design.

Video Description:  Earth's energy balance is very delicate. Small changes may have a big impact. How might changes in Earth's land and atmosphere impact this delicate balance? How might this knowledge be used to help us take better care of Earth?  Video Length:  2:31.NASA eClipsTM is a suite of online student-centered, standards-based resources that support instruction by increasing STEM literacy in formal and nonformal settings.  These free digital and downloadable resources inform and engage students through NASA-inspired, real-world connections.NASA eClips Real World segments (grades 6-8) connect classroom mathematics to 21st Century careers and innovations.  They are designed for students to develop an appreciation for mathematics through real-world problem solving.

Students explore the concepts of center of mass and static equilibrium by seeing how non-symmetrical objects balance. Using a paper cut-out shape of a parrot sitting on a wire coat hanger, they learn that their parrot exists in stable equilibrium — it returns to its balancing point after being disturbed. The weight of its tail makes the parrot balance upright. Give the parrot a push, and she knocks off balance, but swings back and forth until coming to rest in balance again.

Students will listen to a book read by the teacher about forest animals and the yoga poses they perform.

Students write a biographical sketch of an artist or athlete who lives on the edge, riding the gravity wave, to better understand how these artists and athletes work with gravity and manage risk. Note: The literacy activities for the Mechanics unit are based on physical themes that have broad application to our experience in the world concepts of rhythm, balance, spin, gravity, levity, inertia, momentum, friction, stress and tension.

The concepts of stability and equilibrium are introduced while students learn how these ideas are related to the concept of center of mass. They gain further understanding when they see, first-hand, how equilibrium is closely related to an object's center of mass. In an associated literacy activity, students learn about motion capture technology, the importance of center of gravity in animation and how use the concept of center of gravity in writing an action scene.

Students use a simple seesaw to visualize solving a two- or three-step mathematics equation, while solving a basic structural engineering weight balance problem in the process. They solve two-step equations on a worksheet and attempt to solve the challenge of "balancing a beam" through hands-on problems. The use of sensor equipment for correct position monitoring aids students in balancing the structure, as well as balancing the equation as they solve it on paper.

Students are introduced to static equilibrium by learning how forces and torques are balanced in a well-designed engineering structure. A tower crane is presented as a simplified two-dimensional case. Using Popsicle sticks and hot glue, student teams design, build and test a simple tower crane model according to these principles, ending with a team competition.

To learn about the concept of center of mass, students examine how objects balance. They make symmetrical cut-outs of different "creatures" and experiment with how they balance on a tightrope of string. Students see the concept of center of mass at work as the creatures balance.