Curated OER
Ball Bearing Roller Coasters and Teamwork Lab
Students discuss potential and kinetic energy and design roller coasters to study this concept. In this energy instructional activity, students discuss the potential and kinetic energy of a roller coaster. Students design roller coasters...
Curated OER
Give Me Energy
Students explore kinetic energy. In this energy activity students complete an activity and explain what happened.
Purdue University
Rock Steady: Designing a Sensor
Bridge young mathematicians' knowledge of engineering and design. Pupils use two desks and a plastic sheet to simulate a bridge. After learning about energy transformations, they use available materials to design a sensor that detects...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Working with Wind Energy
Teams design and build a windmill, under budget, that can lift an object. The groups evaluate and reflect on their own design, then on those produced by other teams. The goal is to determine which design is the most...
Curated OER
Domino Effect
Seventh graders investigate a change from potential energy to kinetic energy and discuss the concept of waves carrying energy. They, in pairs, work on an experiment which is guided by a worksheet imbedded in this plan.
Curated OER
Potential Energy Diagrams
In this reactions worksheet, students use graphs showing reaction progress to determine if the reaction is exothermic or endothermic, the activation energy, and the enthalpy of change. This worksheet has 1 graph, 7 short answer, and 16...
Curated OER
Ramp and Review
Students participate in an activity in which they observe a ball as it rolls down an incline into a cup. They take measurements and use equations that describe the concepts of mechanical energy, work and power, momentum, and friction. ...
Curated OER
Double Toss
Young scholars experiment with potential and kinetic energy. They design a device that will toss a ball at least 30 centimeters, catch it and to the ball up again.
Curated OER
Perpetual Motion
Pupils are introduced to the concept of Energy Conservation with the example of: Tony Hawk seems to defy the conservation of energy as he keeps reaching new heights on each pass on the halk-pipe. Actually, Tony is supplying the extra...
Curated OER
Energy: Light -- Spinning Color Wheel
Second graders make spinning color wheels to determine how energy effects what colors look like. They paint or color a color wheel with the seven colors of the spectrum. Next, the spin the wheel to determine what happens. In order to...
Curated OER
Design Your Own Rube Goldberg Machine
Students participate in a culminating activity for a unit on Energy and Simple Machines. They are challenged to incorporate simple machines in to a complex mechanical system. While designing and testing their machine they will also...
Curated OER
Energy Sources - Water Wheel Investigation
Young scholars create their own water wheel to show the conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy. They discover the production of electricity through hydropower and apply it to different situations. They share any data collected...
Curated OER
Science: Einstein's Big Idea
Learners explore the various aspects of Einstein's energy equation and discover how energy is transferred from one form to another. In teams, they rotate through seven stations to experience such aspects of energy change through...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Interactive Gumball Machine
Sure, you may be able to build a better mousetrap, but what about a gum dispenser? In a fun engineering challenge, teams must design and build a working interactive gumball machine with specific constraints and criteria.
Curated OER
Alternative Energy
Learners identify the five major alternative energy sources. In this physical science lesson, students assess the advantages and disadvantages for each type of energy. They complete a concept map using information they researched.
Curated OER
Introduction to Materials Science - Part B
Young scholars are able to give specific examples of what to do and what not to do during given safety situations, and classify materials as metals, polymers, ceramics/glass, or composites. They are able to distinguish between chemical...
Curated OER
Designing and Building Catapults
Seventh graders complete a challenge to create a catapult that projects a marble or other projectile at least one meter. While experimenting they apply the Four Question Strategy to answer the question, " How can I make one modification...
Curated OER
The Elastic Racquet
Students use this introductory lab using a tennis racquet, however it is very difficult to study because of the strings and the racquet stretch so little and so quickly during a match that students were unable to make simple...
Curated OER
Elastic Racquet
Learners discover the science behind a tennis racket by looking at a simple toy that works in a similar way. After looking at the related mathematical equations, students experiment with the simple toy to find the spring constant k by...
Curated OER
Rocket Physics
Students investigate the relationship between impulse, momentum, kinetic and potential energy and aerodynamic drag. For this physics lesson, students calculate data taken from launching a rocket. They compare the theoretical and...
Curated OER
Potato Launcher Energy Lab
Pupils investigate conservation laws using a potato launcher. In this physics lesson, students measure angles, time and distance of the potato. They discuss applications of experiments like this.
Curated OER
FORCES, MOTION, AND ENERGY
Eighth graders engage in a variety of activities in order to investigate the basic concepts of physics. They read and answer questions in a written text. This is only one type of activity that is part of many others.
Curated OER
Glass Transition in a Rubber Ball
Learners illustrate the changes in the properties of a material at its glass transition point. They gather data which they use to construct graphs regarding elastic modules versus absorption modulus, tangent delta, and the effect of...
Curated OER
Bounce!
Students investigate the relationship between potential and kinetic energy. In this energy lesson students investigate the height a ball will bounce when dropped from various heights.