This unit has students design and build foam tubing roller coasters. The design process integrates energy concepts as they test and evaluate their designs that address the task as an engineer would. The goal is for students to understand...

Students learn what a pendulum is and how it works in the context of amusement park rides. While exploring the physics of pendulums, they are also introduced to Newton's first law of motion - about continuous motion and inertia.

An article describing free fall principles in roller coaster rides. In addition to the explanation of free fall, an experiment is described that allows you to test free fall with a cup of water. Part of a larger presentation on roller...

If you'd like to investigate the physics of amusement park rides, then this project is for you. You'll build a roller coaster track for marbles using foam pipe insulation and masking tape, and see how much the marble's potential energy...

Students experientially learn about the characteristics of a simple physics phenomenon - the pendulum - by riding on playground swings. They use pendulum terms and a timer to experiment with swing variables. They extend their knowledge...

This activity demonstrates how potential energy (PE) can be converted to kinetic energy (KE) and back again. Given a pendulum height, students calculate and predict how fast the pendulum will swing by understanding conservation of energy...

Help the Mummy build a rollercoaster to entertain the Atoms Family monsters by investigating the concepts of kinetic and potential energy.