Curated OER
Potential Energy: How is It Related to Kinetic Energy?
Students explore kinetic and potential energy. In this energy lesson plan, students launch toys cars from ramps in order to examine the relationship between potential energy and kinetic energy. Students collect data and graph the...
Curated OER
Design Your Own Rollercoaster
Here is a physics lesson that your 5th graders should love. They explore the physics behind roller coasters by viewing roller coaster simulations online. Then, they work in pairs in order to design their own roller coasters and track....
Curated OER
Energy At Play
If you can find Tinker Toys™, then this may be a fun assignment for your physical science class. Using the construction set and a few other toys, they examine the forces involved when it they are being played with. For each, they...
STEM for Teachers
Temperature and Bounce
Take part in a fun experiment and hold an impromptu bouncing contest with your class. Young scientists heat and cool balls before bouncing them to determine whether temperature changes affect how they bounce. The set of...
Curated OER
TE Lesson: Kinetic and Potential Energy of Motion
Students investigate the difference between potential and kinetic energy. They examine the formulae associated with both types of energy. They complete how quickly a pendulum with swing by converting potential energy into kinetic energy.
Curated OER
Is It Kinetic or Potential ?
Seventh graders explore real life activities that demonstrate kinetic and potential energy. They, in groups, classify the activity card statements as kinetic or potential. They should also include where the potential and kinetic energy...
Curated OER
Energy and Work: Transformation Through Engines
High schoolers conduct a webquest on an energy source they chose. In this physics lesson, students design an experiment to determine the factors affecting potential and kinetic energy. They calculate speed and create distance vs. time...
Curated OER
Potential and Kinetic Energy
Fifth graders explore how energy changes from one form to another within their surroundings. They explore how kinetic and potential energy relate to each other and the ability to do work. Students observe example of both kinetic and...
Curated OER
Physical Setting: Physics Exam 2004
Twelve pages of mostly multiple-choice questions comprise this comprehensive New York Regents physics exam. It covers an entire year's worth of physics curriculum and requires about three hours for completion. Review the questions to...
Curated OER
Urban Heat Islands: An Introduction to Energy Transfer and Transformation
Elementary school physical scientists explore kinetic mechanical energy by dropping a golf ball on different surfaces. They discuss how human made materials might react to light differently from nature made materials. This lesson plan...
Curated OER
Investigating Kinetic and Potential Energy
Students examine the differences between potential and kinetic energy. In this potential energy lesson students watch a video and complete an in class investigation.
Curated OER
Simplified Vertical Rebound Testing
Students participate in a lab activity in which they examine a simple energy transformation system. Students test the rebound of elastomers, produce rebound data, and determine the kinetic energy transformed by the impact of a free...
NOAA
Oceans of Energy
Are the earth's oceans really just giant batteries, waiting for their energy to be harnessed? Middle school mechanical engineers will be shocked by the amazing amount of energy that forms around them after diving into part four of a...
Virginia Department of Education
Energy and ATP
Take charge of your biology class by using this exciting analogy to relate the ATP process with batteries. Pupils use batteries and rubber bands to simulate the phosphate bonds between molecules in the body. They measure the distance in...
Bonneville
Introduction to Energy
Transform the classroom with energy. Pupils learn about different types of energy and practice identifying the types in the first lesson of six in a solar versus wind energy unit. The class sees examples of how one type of energy can be...
Curated OER
In Golf Gravitas
Learners are introduced to potential and kinetic energy through the example of a ball being thrown straight up in the air. They are then told that the energy associated with the position of the object is referred to as potential energy....
Curated OER
Energy, Work and Power
Students examine the differences between potential and kinetic energy. In this physics instructional activity students view a video and apply what they learn about energy to apply it to real world situations.
Science Matters
Energy Transfer and Transformation
When you take a simple task and create an exceptionally difficult way to complete it, it is known as a Rube Goldberg machine. These machines are filled with many types of energy transfers and energy transformations. Here, pupils...
Curated OER
Energy: The Universal Currency
Science stars examine the concept of energy by thinking about everyday situations. The lesson plan is incohesive. It lists goals for the student, but doesn't address all of them in the content. The best use of this resource would simply...
Curated OER
Conservation of Energy
Fifth graders identify situations in which kinetic and potential energy are exchanged and identify the direction of energy transfer using marbles and flexible foam track. They observe how the marbles move spontaneously when released...
Curated OER
Swinging Pendulum
Learners engage in an activity which 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...
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
Bounce Back - The Long and Short of It
Upper elementary scientists test basketballs with differing amounts of air to find if inflation affects bounce height. The lesson introduction poses the question of whether or not the composition of a ball determines bounce height, but...
Curated OER
Kinetic Energy: Car Design
Fourth graders participate in a discussion about kinetic and potential energy. They work in groups to design and construct a car using plastic plates, pencils, rubber bands, card stock and balloons. Students write observations about...