Lesson summary
Exploring Western Sciences’ understanding of Physics and Newton’s Laws of Motion, mainly the second law of motion, through investigating how Indigenous Australian cultures understood the laws of motion as evidenced by their spears and spear throwers.
Learning intentions:
Students will...
- explore First Nations Australians’ design, construction and use of spear throwers to understand the relationship between force, mass and acceleration in Newton’s Second law of motion.
Success criteria:
Students can...
- identify Newton’s second law of motion and understand the relationship between force, mass and acceleration
- articulate the role of the forces of motion acting on Indigenous spear throwers
- compare the efficacy of a range of Indigenous spear throwers
- compare the Indigenous method of knowledge construction with the Western Scientific method.
Lesson guides and printables
Lesson details
Curriculum mapping
Australian Curriculum (v9.0) content descriptions:
Year 10 Science:
Students learn to:
- Investigate Newton’s laws of motion and quantitatively analyse the relationship between force, mass and acceleration of objects AC9S10U05
General capabilities: Critical and Creative Thinking, Intercultural Understanding
Syllabus outcomes: SC5-10PW
Cross-curriculum priority: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures.
Relevant parts of Year 10 Science achievement standards: Students can explain how Newton’s laws describe motion and apply them to predict the motion of objects in a system.
Resources required
- Computer
- Projector
- Slide deck of images from lesson
- Website showing images and descriptions of spear throwers
Skills
This lesson is designed to build students’ competencies in the following skills:
- collaboration
- critical thinking
- problem-solving
- curiosity
- adaptability
- creativity
- communication
- reflection.
Additional info
Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that these lessons may contain images, voices and names of deceased persons.
Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium - Open-ended questioning, facilitation of class discussion, options for taking notes in different formats.
This is an original Cool+ lesson.
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