al-mofhariz

Roller coaster designs....you have read that I begin my force and motion unit using the lessons created by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan in More Picture Perfect Science Lessons.  But what comes next?  I felt like I needed to extend the unit more - to cover other concepts besides pushes and pulls.

First, I wanted students to test and explore how to increase a marble's speed by changing the hill height. Next, I wanted students to explore what happens when you change the mass of the marble. 

So we used four different marble sized balls - one of play dough, one with texture and one metal ball bearing.


We weighed the mass of each ball before we experimented on our roller coaster tubes. The children were able to record true data that measured time and mass.

But what next???? I wanted students to learn how to write better conclusions, so I created several cards with their individual conclusions.  The students were able to analyze the responses and decide which were clear, which were confu…

I am so excited about our next engineering project in our STEM related curriculum.  We made Rube Goldberg machines!

First, there are some excellent interactive computer programs that your students can do either at home or at school. I found it interesting to watch my students complete these tasks...at first, they were impatient because it takes thinking to solve the tasks.  But with patience and testing again and again, they were able to solve the puzzle.

The first one is from FOSS (of course)....You get to manipulate the different parts of the machine to catch a burglar.


The other one is from Zoom with PBS.  This one has more parts in the contraption, but it is really fun.  When you finish it, the skateboard delivers lunch to the crew!



Next I presented them with a design brief - You can purchase this design brief at Teachers Pay Teachers if you would like your own copy! 
The students spent a day in their science groups planning what materials they would use to create their own Rube Go…

Do you remember playing Mousetrap as a child? I loved the idea of setting up the trap and watching it fall into place....


Can you even find them anymore? 
Little did I know that I was building my own "Rube Goldberg" Machine. With the onset of YouTube in the classroom, I have fallen in love with sharing these machines with my students.



My classroom full of future engineers and kinesthetic learners have fallen in love with them too.  Here's a great Mythbusters video for the holidays (wish I had seen it last month!)
Stay tuned for how my kids made their own versions in science class!



Comment:

Every year we use foam tubes and marbles to teach the concept of force and motion using the lesson plans created by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan.  Have you read the book More Picture Perfect Science Lessons? or the sister book Picture Perfect Science Lessons? Both of these books include science lessons based on children's literature in a meaningful context - based on the 5 E's of Inquiry. You can buy them at NSTA or Amazon for about $36.  They are well worth the money!

Recently...I was browsing YouTube and found an excellent explanation of this same lesson that we do each year that was taped in Kansas City.  The teacher does a great job of explaining what she is doing and why she is doing it.  She explains the 5 E's - Engage, Explore, Explain, Extend and Evaluate

It is a perfect example of the program with great modeling by the teacher.  I enjoyed seeing her cute additions to the lesson - the kids wear lab coats and safety goggles! She also had some cute visuals of expres…

Today we explored a little with speed....

Oh don't you love speed?  When we were exploring with roller coasters we wanted them to go faster and faster.  When we watch a race, we cheer for the fastest runner.  And yet, on weekends we wish the time could go s-l-o-w-e-r...

I tweaked this lesson from Delta Education's Virgina Specific Curriculum coming soon....

  We started with a Quick Write in our journals =  What is speed?

Here are some responses...
speed is how fast it goesthe distance and time it takes to movespeed is the distancespeed is a motion that is caused by force...slow and fast are speedsspeed is momentum when something moves fast. It has speed like a car.Next I read a passage out of our old text book that explains that speed does describe the motion of an object especially how far it goes and how fast it goes.

Then we gathered materials - each group got:
two toy cars (matchbox)a dictionarya mini whiteboarda timera measuring tapebalance scale and gram stackersIn the student…

Videos I recommend...

Every now and then you need to take the time to watch a video....Here are some of my favorites...

  Disney has some amazing new videos using the park rides to explain physical science.  My school has the one on Friction and I love it... If you can stand Bill Nye's fast pace, his videos are terrific.  My kids love him and they do pick up a lot of information from the dvds...   Last but not least, any dvd by Schlessinger is excellent for science.  These are the videos that FOSS is incorporating into their program in the third edition.  You can find these at most public libraries. What are your favorite DVD's to watch????

Exploring how to manipulate speed....

Today we had a blast exploring how to increase speed using our roller coaster tubes.  I started with a review and we made an anchor chart to show the main points of force and motion: 



Then we did an guided inquiry lesson using our roller coaster tubes.  In order for the students to see that this time we were testing a basic ramp design, I modeled how to make the ramp levels for the students to see.  Then I showed the students how to measure speed with stop watches.  I recommend practicing that for a while.

Then we got into our small groups again and used the sheet to record the speeds each time.  I find that it is important to assign jobs for testing.  Have one person be the recorder, one measure the time, one drop the marble and hold the top of the tube, and one to hold the bottom of the tube.  This seems to work really well.

Here is an example of what the recording sheet looks like.  You can download it for free at the side of the blog where it …

Q:What can we notice about the motion of the marble on the roller coaster tube?

1. Explain:Share the concept of forces and motion using a United Streaming video clip or using a nonfiction text.  I like to use snippets from United Streaming to show a real roller coaster in motion.  The kids get a "Wow" factor and an immediate hook....
2. Label a diagram of a roller coaster to show:
*marble’s position (near the top, traveling down, etc…)
*force – push or pull (we use a push to start the marble, then gravity pulls it along)
*motion – how the marble moves (up, down, forward, backward)
This may seem "elementary" but many kids do not connect the science behind the "fun" until they draw it out on a diagram in their notebooks.

I don't know if you can see, but this student wrote all the key words for direction up, forward, down, stop - but never connected it to the vocabulary term motion.  He also didn't write anything about force.  This example is one that shows…

Whatcan we learn about force and motion by creating our own roller coasters?
Today, students will work in their science groups.Getter one will get the materials – tube, a cup, tape and a marble. The cup is important because it catches the marble at the end of the run. The starter will begin to explore with the tubes for a while to see what the group can do… Can they make a loop? A curve? A drop? 
Extend:Pass out a challenge sheet (from More Picture Perfect Science lessons)  with several challenges to attempt to try in their exploration. Can you move a marble to the cup using one loop? a twist? etc???  Getter two will clean up when the time is over and the Reporter will share what the group was able to do.  The science jobs is an extremely important part of any cooperative group activity because roles are defined and arguing over who does what is not an issue. 

Today we are starting a new unit on Force and Motion.  I start by having them turn in their science notebook page to the next clean page and write a title page – Force and Motion.Then they need to go to the table of contents to place what number this new unit starts on.
What do you know about Force and Motion? I believe one of the best ways of knowing what kids are actually thinking is to ask them what they already know (or think they know).  I will Pass out 12 X 18 paper  to each table (four sheets total) and have the kids brainstorm what they know about force and motion.  They will work on this for about 15 minutes and then have each group share out what they know. What am I looking for?  I am looking to see if students remember that a force is either a push or a pull, simple machines can make the work easier, that motion is a change in position of an object with respect to time and acurate examples of force and motion in their lives. What else am I looking for?  I am looking for misc…

How do you start in fourth grade to introduce force and motion? Here in Virginia they have been exposed to this concept in k-1 learning about pushes and pulls related to toys, then in 2 expanding to pushes/pulls as related to magnets, and then in 3rd grade related to simple machines.  Where do we go from there?

Here are our State Required Standards:
SOL Standard 4.2
The student will investigate and understand characteristics and interaction of moving objects. Key concepts include
a)motion is described by an object’s direction and speed;
b)forces cause changes in motion;
c)friction is a force that opposes motion; and
d)moving objects have kinetic energy.

So...how do I break it down..so that it is interesting and meaningful to my students?


Part One:Force/Motion with Roller coasters:
·describe the position of an object (by location to another object or background)
·collect and display data in a table and line graph to show time and position data for a moving object
·explain that speed is a mea…