Our first goal today is to examine the force associated with compressing or stretching a spring. Questions to consider include:

• Is the same force required to keep a spring stretched a particular distance as it is to keep it compressed the same amount?
• Does the force required depend on what planet you're on?
• If you double (or triple) the stretch (or compression) of a spring how does the force required to keep it stretched (or compressed) change?

  Resources to investigate these questions include:

  1. The various springs and spring scales we have to work with
  2. The Vernier software, such as by using a force sensor to measure force applied
  3. The "Mass and Spring" simulation from the Phet simulation site

  Make a graph of the force required to stretch/compress a spring as a function of the distance the spring is stretched/compressed for at least one, and preferably more than one, spring.