Balanced forces - R2P

This resource provides a lesson plan showing how to use bridging analogies to teach about balanced forces.

The research summary provides a concise overview of the difficulties experienced when teaching this topic and the common misconceptions. Elements of this research, such as using practical bridging analogies, are then utlised within the lesson plan to address the common misconception that stationary objects have no forces acting upon them.

By the end of the lesson pupils should be able to describe the magnitude and direction of forces acting on a stationary object and draw appropriate vector arrows.

This resource is part of a collection of research informed secondary science lesson plans produced as part of the Research-2-Practice (R2P) project undertaken by research teams at the University of Roehampton, University of Lincoln, York St John University and KYRA research school, between 2020 and 2021, which was funded by Wellcome.

The overall aim of the project was to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in science by giving time-pressed teachers quick and easy access to relevant research to inform their practice and provide exemplar lesson plans to show how the research could be used in the classroom. More resources can be found here.