This new video lesson plan from MIT BLOSSOMS is designed to help physics students understand Newton's laws of motions and to help physics educators think about how to incorporate Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) into the classroom. This lesson is taught by high school physics teacher Francis Lenox. During this lesson, students learn how to create a force diagram (also known as a free body diagram) by observing what happens to a weight that is suspended by a thread when one pulls on the thread beneath the weight with differing degrees of force. During this activity, learners also apply Newton's laws of motion to make sense of their observations. As with all MIT BLOSSOMS lessons, this lesson comes complete with a video that physics instructors may use to teach this lesson, along with a detailed teacher's guide and links to additional resources that may be of interest.