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STEM Roller Coasters During Our Energy Unit

STEM Roller Coasters
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.

STEM Roller Coasters


STEM Roller Coasters Materials

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.

STEM Roller Coasters Slide Show

STEM Roller Coasters Slide Show

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. 

STEM Roller Coasters


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.

STEM Roller Coasters


STEM Roller Coasters

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.

STEM Roller Coasters

STEM Roller Coasters

Students were also tasked with naming their Roller Coaster! 

STEM Roller Coasters

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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STEM Roller Coasters

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