How can elementary teachers
bring ideas such as “centrifugal force” and “inertia” to life for their
students? What can we incorporate into an energy unit that will engage our
students while solidifying concepts such as potential and kinetic energy? How
can we make it hands-on?In the fall my teammate
had some great ideas planned to kick off our energy unit. The students were
excited to learn about why things move and how to label all the energy events
happening around them. One day she was searching for more hands-on learning
opportunities and saw a picture of a teacher creating roller coasters out of
grey tubes! She researched a little further and brought the idea back to our
team. She tried to sell it as an opportunity to support the science curriculum,
STEM, collaboration, etc… and as soon as we saw the pictures we were sold! We
just had to figure out if it was possible to pull it off.
STEM Roller Coaster Planning
My teammate found a great
STEM project on Teacher Pay Teachers from Teachers Are Terrific called STEM Activity Roller Coasters Challenge. This resource is amazing and provided us with great
background knowledge along with detailed teacher directions, editable work pages, and
pictures to support us. We used this as a framework and it guided us through the
exploration.
We knew time was going to
be an issue. A challenge this size would need more time than the standard blocks
of instruction in our daily routine. Even the set up and clean up would take
more time than we had. As a team we decided that we were going to give up 2
full days of all of our teaching blocks and designate them as Roller
Coaster-palooza!
Once the time issue worked
out, we needed to find a place to be able to set up our roller coasters. We
wanted a place large enough to accommodate the groups and safe enough for our
roller coasters to stay overnight until our next work session. We decided on
the auditorium.
In subsequent years we
have done this challenge in a combined space (library/classroom). If you are
planning for one class, a classroom will work. If you are planning for a larger
more collaborative experience, you may need to find a space larger than a classroom
to make it work. Plan according to the size of your group. We were more cramped
in the library/classroom, but the learning was the same!
Materials were the next
thing that we needed to troubleshoot. The tubes are around $1 a piece. Each
group needs three halves. But we had 75 kids consisting of 15 groups (4-5
kids). I read that pool noodles can be used as well but they can’t be
manipulated as easy as the insulation tubes. We needed a lot more than my
classroom budget wanted to support. Many times we use Donor Choose to help with
our STEM activities, but we didn’t have that kind of time. So my teammate put her
feelers out to her classroom parents and found out that one of the fathers owns
a HVAC business. They were more than happy to donate the insulation tubes for
us! Ask around you never know who is listening!
We made groups that mixed all
three homerooms so that our groups were heterogeneous. This allowed students to
problem solve with students they wouldn’t choose on their own. Within the
groups each student had a role that helped the group work as a successful unit.
These roles helped maintain collaboration and allowed everyone to play a role
in their success.
All of the
tubing needed to be cut into halves so we had enough pieces for each group to
have 3. We made sure we had at least 1 roll of masking tape for each group and
a variety of marbles to use/test. We had large and small glass marbles as
well as a variety of steel marbles. This provided opportunities to test how
size and mass affected their trials.
Materials Per Group (4-5
students):
- 3 Pieces of FoamTubing
(to act as the track)
- Masking Tape
- Recording Forms
- Pencils
- Various Marbles (glass,
steel, etc.)
- Index Card
- Plastic Cup (to catch the
marble)
- A Chair or Stool
We created a slide
presentation that would work as a guide for our two days of STEM. The guiding
questions, steps, and informational videos would help us move through our plans
in an organized manner. We kept the guiding slides projected so every student
could look up and reference what their goals were for each part of the day. We
included a time frame and guiding questions.
We also made copies of the
record sheets that came from Teachers are Terrific. It was great that we could
edit these because we changed the schedule from 3 to 2 days due to our time constraints.
Prepping the Space!
Materials were all set.
Now we had to prep the space. In the morning before the students came in, we
divided the stage and floor into 15 sections that gave each group about a 3’x5’
area. We mapped out the floor with masking tape and we were ready for the
materials to be brought in. We had one area in the front of the stage where all
the materials were held.
OUR 2 DAY SCHEDULE
DAY 1 AM:
- Whole Group Meeting with
Slide Show and Videos
- One Tube and One Hill
DAY 1 PM:
- Whole Group Meeting and
Debrief
- Two Tubes, One Hill, One
Loop
DAY 2 AM:
- Whole Group Meeting and
Debrief
- Three Tubes, Three Hills, One
Loop
We divided the schedule
into two days of roller coaster fun. In a nutshell we made day 1 the foundation
learning and building of the basic coasters. This day started with only 1 tube
to experiment with. We had the guiding questions scaffold the learning that was
needed for adding a second tube for the afternoon. In the morning they only had
hills; but in the afternoon, they were able to start experimenting with loops.
This first day was magical to see how hard they worked together to make a
working coaster.
On day 2 the groups were
given their third tube to create 3 hills and a loop. They had to put all of
their learning and trials to work. We saw more frustrations on day 2 because
there were more expectations and constraints. But, we also started to see
some unique thinking and engineering. Students started to look around for other
materials they could use to get the correct amounts of potential and kinetic
energy to get the marble in the cup.
Students were also tasked with naming their Roller Coaster!
At the end of each day we had the students
complete a Google Form that would give us immediate feedback for the project. We used the feedback to adjust for the next session. Of
course, they learned more deeply about energy, but they gained a much better undertsanding of how to collaborate and problem solve. These kinds of lessons will
forever be in their minds and be used as stepping stones for future
collaborations. I can’t wait to do this again next year!
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