Students investigate how pushes, pulls, gravity, and stability affect motion so they can design an inclusive playground experience that is safe, fun, and accessible for children across grade levels. Through hands-on testing, model building, and ongoing feedback, they apply Newton’s Laws and scientific ideas to solve a real design problem while considering materials, natural hazards, and how people use shared spaces. Over six weeks, they create a scale playground model with moving parts, reflect weekly on their learning, and prepare to share their designs and reasoning with families, classmates, and community stakeholders.

Students will explain how pushes, pulls, gravity, friction, and balanced or unbalanced forces affect motion, using age-appropriate examples from playground equipment and Newton’s Laws. They will apply scientific ideas and the engineering design process to plan, build, test, and revise a scale playground model with moving parts that is safe, inclusive, and responsive to natural materials, weather, and site conditions. Students will collaborate to gather feedback, make shared design decisions, and communicate their thinking clearly through sketches, discussions, reflections, and a final presentation to families, peers, and community stakeholders. They will use weekly reflection and assessment evidence to strengthen their content knowledge, improve their model, and take increasing ownership of their learning.

Students will create investigation notes, force-and-motion test setups, labeled design sketches, and short weekly reflection entries that show how their ideas change through feedback and revision. In teams, they will build and improve a scale playground model with moving parts that demonstrates pushes, pulls, gravity, stability, and safe motion, using accessible features for different ages and abilities. They will also produce a simple engineering portfolio with test results, safety explanations, and connections to Newton’s Laws and natural materials. By the end, teams will present their finished model and display materials to families, peers, and community stakeholders at a public exhibition.

Begin with a playground investigation walk where students test swings, slides, seesaws, and climbers, noticing pushes, pulls, gravity, motion, stability, and safety while recording questions, sketches, and accessibility observations for different age groups and abilities. Back in class, present a short design challenge from a principal, families, or parks staff asking students to propose a new inclusive playground experience for K–8 students that is fun, safe, and works with natural materials and local weather hazards. In teams, students build and test a quick mini-prototype from classroom materials that shows one moving part, then share what worked, what felt unstable, and what they would revise based on peer feedback. Close with a whole-group discussion of the essential questions and a first reflection entry about how engineers use forces and teamwork to solve real community problems.

Host a “Playground Design Expo” where teams present their scale playground models with moving parts to families, school staff, community stakeholders, and younger students. Each group demonstrates how pushes, pulls, gravity, and Newton’s Laws affect the motion of their equipment, explains how their design supports inclusive play, and shares how feedback shaped revisions over the six weeks. Add a simple interactive station where visitors test model features, ask questions, and leave written feedback or votes for designs that are safest, most fun, and most accessible. Conclude with a gallery walk and short student reflections that highlight science learning, teamwork, and problem solving.