Notes for Forces, Gravity, and Friction (pg 254-57)

Explore forces, gravity, and friction with this 5th-grade science worksheet!

Use the word bank to complete the notes about forces. If you want to move anything, you must apply some sort of force. These forces can be a push or a pull and cause objects to speed up, slow down, change direction, stop, or change shape. We measure force with spring scale in units called newtons (N).The larger the force that is exerted on an object, the greater the change it causes to motion. The smaller the force, the smaller the change in motion.Sometimes more than one forces acts together causing no changein motion.One type of force, gravity, is an attraction between two objects. This forces causes things to fall to Earth. Objects with larger mass have a greater gravitational pull that objects with a smaller mass.Frictionis a force that opposes, or tries to resist motion. Friction occurs when objects are touching, like bike tires on a road. It is easy to slip on ice because ice does not have a lot of friction. But when you use something like sand paper, it is difficult to move because there is a lot of friction between the wood and sandpaper.Friction can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what you are trying to accomplish. If we are walking on a slippery sidewalk, we want to increasefriction by wearing shoes with a good tread. But an hockey player wants to decreasefriction on ice, so he wears ice skates with narrow blades.