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This Exploring Variables While Testing and Improving Mint-Mobiles (for High School) activity also includes:
- Design Worksheet (.pdf)
- Market Your Mint Mobile Worksheet (.pdf)
- Activity
- Vocabulary
- Assessment
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Mint candies are good for more than just one's breath. Using basic materials such as mint candies, straws, index cards, and Popsicle sticks, scholars create race cars that meet a given budget as well as design constraints. They perform an experiment to measure the distance the car travels down a ramp based on its mass, graph the data as a scatter plot, and analyze a line of best fit.
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CCSS:
Designed
NGSS:
Designed
Concepts
Instructional Ideas
- Use the activity extensions as extra credit assignments
Classroom Considerations
- Pupils should be familiar with how to create a scatter plot and line of best fit
- A middle school version of the activity is available as a separate resource
- Requires a variety of materials; see the resource for a complete list
Pros
- Lists some questions to use as part of a discussion session
- Provides definitions for relevant vocabulary terms
Cons
- None