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Experiments
in Design and Motion
During Phase 3, students explore the mathematics in
design and motion related to roller coasters.
Roller Derby: Students
work in small groups of 1-3. Each group gets a piece of poster board
to construct a marble track. They cut the board into strips in widths
that they determine as a group in following the design requirements:
- The track starting point must be at least 50 cm above the floor.
- The last segment of track must be uphill.
- Somewhere between the start and finish the track must touch the
floor.
- The track must come apart into transportable sections.
- A marble rolled down the track must drop into a cup at the end of
the track.
Students demonstrate their track and answer teacher questions about
energy properties (the changes in potential to kinetic energy, effects
of friction, and inertia) throughout the track.
"Students were really into the design
of their slides. Some groups got carried away and did other elements
in additions to a slide, but they were still with the established
parameters so the design was legit. At the end of the class period
several students took the materials home to conduct further experiments."
--Meile Harris
Graph Match with Follow the Leader:
As a pretest, students are given five scenarios with 4 (speed versus
elapsed time) graphs. Scenarios are brief statements of familiar motion
such as, a child swinging on a swing. For each scenario, students choose
which graph matches the scenario. (Often students will choose a graph
that matches the motion of the object described in the scenario rather
than analyzing the motion according the graph labels.) Next, the whole
class works together on a graph matching activity called "Follow the
leader" that Pasco motion detectors with Science Workshop software.
The software presents a plotted line on a position versus time graph.
Students move within range of the motion detector, attempting to duplicate
the graph displayed on the computer.
"I like both of the activities. The pretest,
identifying qualitative graphs, was an excellent indicator of students'
misconceptions about graphs. Following this with the "Follow the Leader"
activity was great because it provided an opportunity for students
to test out what they thought they needed to do (in terms of movement)
to match the given graph. All students were given several opportunities
to match the graph. Students became better (usually) with each successful
turn. . Students watching provided input about what needed to be done
to match the graph more effectively. " --Meile
Harris 
Foam Tubes: Students explore specific
design elements of a roller coaster by building a track using 2-3 sections
of foam tubes (pipe insulation.) Students must incorporate at least
2 of 3 elements (slide, loop, spiral) into their design. Students test
the designs using marbles of different size and mass. A marble must
successfully roll from the start of the track to its end to receive
full credit.
"Of course students loved this activity-very
kinesthetic. They had to trouble shoot through the activity to get
the marble to travel to the end of the track. The bummer was that
I thought I would be able to use the photogates to measure acceleration
for each group and the marbles didn't have enough height to get a
reading." --Meile Harris
Exploring Slope: Students work
through a teacher handout that has four activities related to slope
from a brainstorm and jounal entry on what students already know to
geoboard exercises and graphing.
Exploring Slope Activity Handout
"Students struggled with the geoboard
activity initially. I did a quick follow up the next block day with
a geoboard sheet and most students did well on it. I found a couple
of problems with negative slopes and students were concerned about
which way the triangle was drawn so that led to a good (but quick)
discussion about does it really matter which way the triangle is drawn.
Also students are beginning to see the relationship between the slope
formula and the visual finding of slope." --Meile
Harris
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