Net Force: Balanced or Unbalanced

Eight illustrated cards, each with two forces and a number for each. Students add or subtract to find the net force, then fill in the circle: balanced or unbalanced. The cards are chosen to break the most common misconception in this unit: a coasting cyclist and a skydiver at steady speed are moving, yet their forces are balanced. A Sum It Up cloze at the bottom locks in the rule.

What's Included

• 1 student page: 8 illustrated sort cards (4 balanced, 4 unbalanced) plus a Sum It Up fill-in with word bank
• 1 teacher key page with the answer and a one-line net-force calculation for every card, plus a Big Idea box stating the misconception fix
• Letter-size PDF, no prep

How It Helps You Teach

• Directly practices TEKS 6.7B: calculate net force in a horizontal or vertical direction and decide balanced vs. unbalanced
• Includes still objects, speeding-up objects, slowing-down objects, and constant-speed objects, so students cannot sort by "is it moving?"
• The key's one-line calculations make it easy to review the whole sheet in two minutes

Pair It With

This sheet is part of a four-activity Net Force set: Context Clues, Inferences, Science in the News (Artemis II), and Science Sort. Check out our library for the other three and the full set.

Standards: TEKS 6.7B; NGSS MS-PS2-2. Part of the Daily Science series by Workybooks.