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Knowledge and Skills Statement

Force, motion, and energy. The student describes the cause-and-effect relationship between force and motion.

In grade 6, students learned to calculate the net force on an object and describe whether the forces are balanced or unbalanced. To do this, they also learned to identify force pairs as described by Newton's third law.  In grade 7, students determine how the net force on an object affects its state of motion, and in grade 8 students will investigate acceleration using Newton's second law.

forces acting on an object within a system that cancel each other out, providing a net force of zero on an object within the system; will not cause a change in motion or cause acceleration

a push or pull between two objects

an act, process, or instance of changing position or location

forces acting on an object within a system that do not cancel each other out or add up to zero, producing a net force; will cause acceleration (a change in motion) in the direction of the unbalanced force

Research

Bobrowsky, Matt. “Science 101: Q: Does a Force on an Object Always Result in Motion?” Science and Children 57, no. 2 (2019): 77–79. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26901523. Accessed 25 May 2023

Summary: In "Science 101: Q: Does a Force on an Object Always Result in Motion?" the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on an object are explained in terms of speed and direction.