Cover page - University of Washingtoncourses.washington.edu/edtep586/Rachael Unit Plan M… · Web viewAfter testing is complete, students will complete all calculations and share

Rachael TarshesUnderstanding Roller Coasters

A Unit Plan for Forces and Motion8th Grade Science

2Subject area description

Eighth grade students at College Place Middle School will be learning about forces

and motion for about three weeks for a total of 12 classes. Three of the 12 classes are mid-

week blocks in which students are in class for 100 minutes rather than the standard 50

minutes. In order to utilize the block schedule efficiently, students will perform major aspects

of their inquiry during the block classes. During block periods, students will perform

experiments and collect data, as well as have a debriefing regarding their findings. The

debriefing is an important aspect of inquiry days because it allows students to see new

connections between what they have done and what they initially thought. For the 50-minute

classes, students will do such things as be introduced to new concepts, discuss ideas for

their culminating project, work on their formal report and take an exam.

Although students already have been introduced to forces and motion that are

involved in flight (drag, gravity, lift, and thrust), the goal of this unit is to provide students with

an understanding of forces and motion that they encounter everyday such as the falling of an

object. This unit will also expand upon students’ experience with scientific inquiry. Thus far,

students have experienced inquiry more as confirmatory exercises in which their findings

reinforce concepts that they learned. However, in this unit, students will develop new ideas

based on their own data. The inquiry project has been designed as a mix between guided

and structured inquiry. The main inquiry students will perform is the roller coaster culminating

project. By the end of the project, students will discover the relationship of Newton’s 2nd Law

of Motion: F = ma. Three main teaching strategies will be used throughout unit: eliciting

students’ ideas, guided exploration, and interactive concept building.

3Essential question: How can we build the fastest roller coaster in the world?

The Seattle Center has just hired you onto their team for a special project. Working with

other scientists, you have been asked to construct the world’s fastest roller coaster. The

current fastest roller coaster is The Top Thrill Dragster that is at Cedar Point amusement park

in Ohio and it reaches a maximum speed of 120mph.

o Students will need to know how a roller coaster works to begin answering this

question. They will need to address their preconceptions and work together to

develop their knowledge of force and motion actions and interactions. Students will

develop an understanding of what they would need to change on a roller coaster in

order to get their desired results.

Learning goals and objectives:

1. Students will be able to describe the positions, relative speeds, and changes in speed of objects. (EARL 1.1.2)1.1 Students will be able to explain how mass, force, and acceleration are related.1.2 Students will generalize the key concept that speed measures how fast position changes.1.3 Students will generalize the key concept that acceleration measures how fast velocity changes.1.4 Students will apply principles of forces and motion they have learned to new situations.1.5 Students will explain how speed is measured.1.6 Students will predict how speed can be changed.

2. Students will understand that energy is a property of substances and comes in many forma such as the energy of motion. (EARL 1.2.2)

2.1 Students will understand that energy is conserved.2.2 Students will be able to define potential and kinetic energy.

3. Students will know the factors that determine the strength of various forces. (EARL 1.3.1)3.1 Students will understand the affects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object.3.2 Students will know how Newton’s 1st Law operates.3.3 Students will prove the relationship of Newton’s 2nd Law of Motion.

4. Students will develop the abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry. (EARL 2.1)4.1 Students will conduct a scientific investigation using appropriate equipment and mathematics.4.2 Students will analyze data to compare and contrast multiple outcomes.4.3 Students will communicate scientific investigations and explanations in writing. (EARL 2.1.5)4.4 Students will be able to justify their roller coaster designs based on principles of forces, measurements of motion, and energy.4.5 Students will identify assumptions about how roller coasters work.4.6 Students will provide evidence based on forces and motion to make predictions about a scientific investigation.

5. Students will be able to value discussion with their peers about scientific thinking and findings.5.1 Students will be able to respectfully challenge others’ ideas/thinking.

45.2 Students will be able to work cooperatively to solve a problem and/or answer a question.

Unit matrix

Week 1 – Day 1 Monday 50 Minutes1. What students are doing

Students will be shown a roller coaster video clip. Eliciting students’ ideas: How do roller coasters operate? Students will answer the following questions regarding roller coasters in their lab notebooks:

What do you know? What do you think you know? What do you want to know?

Students will do a Think/Pair/Share with their answers. They will work together through class discussion to create a collective chart.

2. Objectives 4.5 Students will identify assumptions about how roller coasters work.

3. Reasons for content and instructional strategy

Phase I of Inquiry: The roller coaster video clip serves as the hook for the unit. Hopefully most if not all of the students will have a past experience with roller coasters. At the very start of the year, the students will be presented with a roller coaster extra credit opportunity. The reasoning behind that activity is to expose or refresh the students to how it feels to ride on a roller coaster. The think/pair/share activity uses the eliciting students’ ideas teaching strategy to learn about students’ prior knowledge and what they are interested in learning about roller coasters. Students’ prior knowledge will be used as a place to start the unit and at this point, students’ misconceptions will hopefully arise and be addressed. This activity will also be used as a way to track what students have learned. At the end of the unit students will look back on this activity and be asked what items have moved from the “want to know” and “think I know” to the “I know” categories.

4. Evidence of understanding

Collective chart, student journals, student dialogue

5. Resources Roller coaster video clip, butcher paper, markers

5

Week 1 – Day 2 Tuesday/Wednesday 100 Minutes1. What students are doing

Students will have a quick review on mass. What is mass? How is it measured? Hook - Airplane travels at 345 mph. Car traveling at 35 mph toward the east. Eagle dives faster and faster. In groups, students will answer the following questions about the hook examples:

What is the difference between the examples? What does each example measure? What is being measured in each example? How is it measured?

Group sharing and class discussion about the questions - define speed, velocity, and acceleration. Students will then perform a lab activity on measuring speed. After the lab, students will share their data as a class and have a sense making discussion. The discussion will focus around this question from their lab: How did changing the time affect the motion of the ball? (Change in force)

2. Objectives 1.0 Students will be able to describe the positions, relative speeds, and changes in speed of objects.1.5 Students will explain how speed is measured.1.6 Students will predict how speed can be changed.1.2 Students will generalize the key concept that speed measures how fast position changes.5.2 Students will be able to work cooperatively to solve a problem and/or answer a question.1

5.1 Students will be able to respectfully challenge others’ ideas/thinking.2


Phase I of Inquiry: The purpose of this lesson is to introduce students to terms that describe motion. Students need to have an understanding of motion before they can learn and understand how forces influence motion. The examples serve as a hook because they are something to which students can relate. Along with the examples are the questions. These two items combined guide students to an understanding of the terminology involved in motion. In this activity, students are allowed to have ownership of the content they generated because they are the ones contributing to the discussion of what the terms mean.The chosen instructional activity for this day is guided exploration as a means of having the students work to construct rules and discover relationships about different phenomena.The lab activity will give the students the opportunity to work collaboratively to build upon their knowledge of different ways to measure position. Student data will be shared and graphically organized for deeper understanding and later use.


Class data, student journals, practice problems homework

5. Resources tennis balls, meter sticks, stopwatches, tape

1 This objective applies whenever students work in groups.2 This objective applies whenever students share their ideas, data, and analyses to the class – class discussion.

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Week 1 – Day 3 Thursday 50 Minutes1. What students are doing

Students will be given a real life example of velocity (walking in a crowd) and asked: Velocity vs. Speed – How are they different? How are they the same? They will be given time to write responses in their journals which will be followed by a brief class discussion.Demonstration: bouncing balls. Students will be asked: How does velocity change? How is that change measured? Class discussion moves to the idea of acceleration and how it is measured. Students will go back to their graphs from the previous day and do some acceleration calculations. Introduce Roller Coaster Project.

2. Objectives 1.3 Students will generalize the key concept that acceleration measures how fast velocity changes.1.0 Students will be able to describe the positions, relative speeds, and changes in speed of objects.


Phase I of Inquiry: This day is a continuation of the previous day’s introduction to speed, velocity, and acceleration. It serves as an interactive concept building day for students to gain background information that they will need when conducting their inquiries. Velocity and acceleration are more complex calculations than speed thus the students can benefit by having more teacher guidance.The Roller Coaster Project is being introduced as a means of connecting all the work the students have done so far and letting them know where they will be going with it.


Student journal, practice problem homework

5. Resources Tennis balls

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Week 1 – Day 4 Friday 50 Minutes1. What students are doing

Hook – Non-moving object and moving object. As a class:□ Describe the motion of the objects□ Can you change their motion? □ Will it change by itself?

Class discussion will follow with the goal of working towards a general rule for this phenomenon. (Newton’s 1st Law) Extension – Lab Activity: How can you change an object’s motion? Students will work with different objects to change their motion in several ways and make predictions about what is needed to make those changes. This activity is followed by a class discussion about student ideas and results. Students will be able with discussion to generalize the key concept that force changes motion.Present the key concept that force transfers momentum. Students will be given real life examples of what momentum is and how it relates to their everyday life (cars and seat belts).

2. Objectives 3.1. Students will understand the affects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object.3.2. Students will know how Newton’s 1st Law operates.


Phase I of Inquiry: Another day of interactive concept building deepens students understanding of motion and relates it to forces. Students have worked with the idea of force previously under a different context (flight) and by revisiting it before they start their inquiries; they will have a general idea of the role that forces plays in the motion of objects.It is important for Newton’s 1st Law to be presented before the students do their work on Newton’s 2nd Law because the 1st law is easier to observe and talk about.


Student journals, practice problems homework

5. Resources Quarters, books, tennis balls, cups, feathers

8


Warm-up: What is energy? What are some examples of energy that you encountered this morning from the time you woke up until the time you got to science class?Students will be introduced to the term “work”. Class discussion will ask students to think about how work relates to energy. (Need energy to do work)Demonstration: Holding a ball in the palm of your hand…

□ Does the ball have energy?□ Why or why not?

Potential and kinetic energy will be defined and students will do a journaling activity. They will be asked to make a chart and list examples of potential and kinetic energy. (Key concept – energy is transferred when work is done) Think/Pair/ShareAsk students: What happens to the energy? Is all of it transferred? If not, where did it go? (The total amount of energy is constant)Students will be told to review the directions for their roller coaster project that will start the next day.

2. Objectives 2.1 Students will understand that energy is conserved.2.2 Students will be able to define potential and kinetic energy.


Phase I of Inquiry: The interactive concept building strategy is incorporated here to provide students with the necessary background knowledge to get started on their inquiry projects. With a shorter period and a lot of information to cover before the students start their projects, adding direct instruction to this lesson allows for all the necessary knowledge nuggets to be presented.


Student journals, practice problems

5. Resources Tennis ball

9


Warm-up: What are we doing today?Problem: What is the relationship between mass, force, and acceleration?Students will work as a group to develop a testable hypothesis.Students will begin construction of their roller coasters while working in small groups. The students will be asked to consider the following while constructing their roller coasters:

□ What forces are involved?□ How will hills, curves, and steepness affect your coaster?□ What provides resistance? How is that important?□ Using what you have learned about motion and force, justify

your design choices□ If any revisions are needed (your tennis ball must make a

complete run) explain what is wrong, why, and what you are going to do to fix it

2. Objectives 4.4 Students will be able to justify their roller coaster designs based on principles of forces, measurements of motion, and energy.


Phase II of Inquiry: Students are developing hypotheses to guide their inquiry. Students are applying what they have learned about force and motion in the construction of their roller coasters.This day is simply a day for students to set-up their “experiments” so that they have enough time to collect data in the following days.


Student journals – answers to set-up questions

5. Resources Cardboard, tennis balls, heavy-duty scissors, hot glue gun and glue, meter stick

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Class discussion: Based on the problem and your hypothesis, □ What kind of data do you want to collect? □ How will you collect it?□ Standards? # of trials? □ How will you organize your data?

As a class, construct a graphic organizer (all students will need to collect the same type of data so that it can be compared)Students will do their first run with just their tennis ball, collecting data and making calculations.

2. Objectives 4.1 Students will conduct a scientific investigation using appropriate equipment and mathematics.


Phase III of Inquiry: In order for students to take ownership of the inquiry they will need to have an active part in its development. One aspect of that is deciding what kind of data to collect and how to collect them.


Student journals – data and calculations

5. Resources Student-built roller coasters, tennis balls. stopwatches, meter-sticks

Week 2 – Day 8 Friday 50 Minutes1. What students are doing

Sense-making day: as a class share data□ What are the differences? Why?□ Can you see any patterns in the data?□ What errors could there be?

Introduction of revision: students will chose as a group one goal (fastest, slowest, tallest roller coaster) and ONE thing to change (ex. mass, friction, length of track). Individually for homework, the students will state what they are changing, why they chose to change that aspect, and how they will change it.

2. Objectives 4.2 Students will analyze data to compare and contrast multiple outcomes.4.6 Students will provide evidence based on forces and motion to make predictions about a scientific investigation.


Phase IV of Inquiry: Sense-making days work as a way for students to share data, determine experimental errors, and to rethink their hypotheses. This work will combine to provide the students with an educated idea of how to make revisions in order to achieve a desired outcome. Having students work individually on the justifications will provide an opportunity for individual assessment.


Student journal, project revision homework

5. Resources No additional resources are needed.

11


Students will make revisions to their roller coasters. If students have time after revising, they will collect additional data on their revised models

2. Objectives 4.1 Students will conduct a scientific investigation using appropriate equipment and mathematics.


Phases III and IV of Inquiry: It is important for students to not only analyze their outcomes and make predictions, but to also apply the knowledge gained by doing so to a revision of their initial product. By retesting, students will be able to test their revised roller coasters and check for validity in their predictions.


Student journals

5. Resources Student-built roller coasters, tennis balls. stopwatches, meter-sticks, weights, sand paper, oil, additional cardboard, scissors, hot-glue gun and glue


Students will be given additional time to test their revised roller coaster. After testing is complete, students will complete all calculations and share data with the class.During the sense-making discussion, students will be asked to revisit the problem: What is the relationship between, mass, force, and acceleration? Students will be given summary and conclusion questions to guide their thinking towards developing the model F = ma.Wrap-up: Students will look back at the class chart from Day 1 and discuss what has changed in their knowledge and thinking.Students will receive the rubric for their formal write up.

2. Objectives 1.1 Students will be able to explain how mass, force, and acceleration are related.4.2 Students will analyze data to compare and contrast multiple outcomes.


Phase V of Inquiry: Wrap-UpIt is important for students to be given the opportunity to discuss and think about the outcomes of their investigations. By having students revisit their initial concepts about how roller coasters work and reorganize it gives them a visual of how their thinking has changed in terms of what they have learned.


Student journals – summary questions

5. Resources Student journals, student-built roller coasters, tennis balls, meter sticks, stopwatches

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Students will begin work on their formal project write-up. They will be provided with the rubric for the write up and given guiding questions.

What principles of force and motion did you incorporate into your roller coaster project?

Using evidence from your investigation, how would you describe the relationship between mass, force, and acceleration?

2. Objectives 4.3 Students will communicate scientific investigations and explanations in writing.3.3 Students will prove the relationship of Newton’s 2nd Law of Motion.


Students are provided with a day to work in class on their culminating assessment so that if they have any questions, I am available to help them. In addition, by having an in-class working day, all students will at least have done some parts of the write-up, which hopefully means they will have an understanding of the problem posed for the project.


Formal write-up for the project that is due on the following Monday.

5. Resources None required.

Week 3 – Day 12 Friday 50 Minutes1. What students are doing Students will take a test on forces and motion. Students will be

given time to do more work on their write-ups.

2. Objectives 1.4 Students will apply principles of forces and motion they have learned to new situations.


Providing the students with an assessment such as a test gives the teacher an additional tool to gauge student understandings of the contented presented.


Forces and motion test.

5. Resources None required.

13Rachael TarshesInquiry-based Unit Planning

Name of Unit: Forces Subject Area: Physical ScienceGrade Level: 8th Grade

RationaleForces of motion are an important topic for students to study in order to gain a greater

understanding of the world around them. There are many science standards in place for 8th graders to meet in their knowledge of forces of motion. From the EARLS, students must be able to: describe the positions, relative speeds, and changes in speed of objects (1.1.2); understand that energy is a property of substances and comes in many forms such as energy of motion (1.2.2); know the factors that determine the strength of various forces (1.3.1); and understand the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of objects (1.3.2). From the Atlas of Science Literacy, students in the 8th grade should know that changes in the speed or direction of motion are caused by forces; the greater the force is, the greater the change in motion will be; the motion of an object is always judged with respect to some other object or point.

Students will learn about the fundamentals of force such as Newton’s Laws and Universal gravitation through readings, hands on experiments, and demonstrations, culminating in a structured inquiry project working with roller coasters. Students will be presented with force of motion principles that are evident in everyday life such as cars, rockets, animals running, rockets, and bouncing balls.

This unit on forces starts off the school year. From here the students take a deeper look at gravity and move into studies of the solar system and planetary interaction. Combining planetary interaction and gravity, students focus in on the moon and Earth and how they all work together to form tides. Working with their accumulating knowledge, the students will wind up their physical science portion of the year by looking at waves and how and were they occur.

Concept Map: Attached

14Critical Attributes:

1. Forces cause changes in the speed or direction of motion.2. The motion of an object is always judged with respect to some other object or point.3. The greater the force on an object, the greater the change in that object’s motion.4. Factors affect the rate and amount of energy transferred and it can be described as a

decrease in one form of energy and an increase in another.5. Momentum is conserved.

Culminating AssessmentStudents will work in groups of 3 or 4 to design and construct a roller coaster based upon principles of force and motion they have learned throughout the unit. All roller coasters will have to meet certain requirements (2 hills, etc) and students will be supplied with minimal materials. Any additional supplies will need to be brought in by the students. The idea is that by having the students work together in small groups to construct their roller coasters, each class will have 4 to 5 coasters that are different in some way. We are going to take advantage of that. The students will have tennis balls serving as cars that will run on their coasters that they will be able to collect data on. The easiest piece of data I can think of now is for the students to measure how long it takes their cars to complete the run of the roller coaster. So all the students will have the data they have collected from their data along with facts about their coasters (height of hills, total length, etc) and they will do a group sharing day. Hopefully by sharing as a large group the students will be able to work out why certain roller coasters produced certain results. This is really where the inquiry starts with this project. We want the students to work via inquiry to develop and understanding of the relationships on Newton’s 2rd Law. Having discussed their initial results, the students will be set loose. They will be told they have to change at least one thing with their coaster (mass of the tennis ball, length of the track, height of the hills, etc) to achieve a chosen goal (slowest coaster, fastest coaster, tallest coaster, etc). After the grand-remodel, the students will then collect data again and do group shares. The unit will end with this project so the final assessment part will be a formal lab report. While working through their experimental construction phases, the students will record all of their data and observations in their lab notebooks. Students will be given an outline of the requirements and the scoring rubric before the project even starts so that they have an idea of what will be required. Each aspect of the project will be combined with probing and summary questions to help guide student thinking.

RationaleIn order to perform well students will need to know principles of forces and motion. In order to show knowledge of these principles, the students will not only have to design and create their roller coaster but they will have to explain why they have made the changes that they have to get the desired results. They will need to have an understanding of how forces cause changes to an object’s speed or direction of motion (CA#1). With that understanding, students can successfully explain forces such as gravity and friction and how they come into play on a roller coaster. Another aspect the students need to have is an understanding of the law of conservation of

15energy (CA#2). They will need to understand that for a roller coaster to move, energy must be transformed from potential to kinetic energy at different points along the track.

Critical Attributes Used1. Forces cause changes in the speed or direction of motion.2. Factors affect the rate and amount of energy transferred and it can be described as a

decrease in one form of energy and an increase in another.

Essential Question: How can we build the new fastest roller coaster in the world?

The Seattle Center has just hired you onto their team for a special project. Working with other scientists, you have been asked to construct the world’s new fastest roller coaster. The current fastest roller coaster is The Top Thrill Dragster that is at Cedar Point amusement park in Ohio and it reaches a maximum speed of 120mph.

o Students will need to know how a roller coaster works to begin answering this question. They will need to address their preconceptions and work together to develop their knowledge of force and motion actions and interactions. Students will develop an understanding of what they would need to change on a roller coaster in order to get their desired results.

Documents

Cover page - University of Washingtoncourses.washington.edu/edtep586/Rachael Unit Plan M… · Web viewAfter testing is complete, students will complete all calculations and share