During our 5th grade force and motion unit, students learn the concepts and they design a simple course to demonstrate each concept in isolation. The purpose is for the students to create a working model that best explains what they learned about Newton's Laws.
At the end of each week, students get into small groups and in one a class period, they are to design and create something they learned from the lessons. Through trial and error with various materials including different types of paper and tape, I concluded that cardboard and hot glue worked the best.
Some of the concepts to create include: Potential/Kinetic Energy, Inertia, Force, Friction, Velocity, Slopes, Mass/Acceleration and Action/Reaction.
Once completed, they demonstrated their design using the appropriate terms and justifying their product with learned content.
At the completion of the unit, we have a running course for each lesson, students get into groups of their choosing and they can create a course of their own design.
There are some stipulations for the project:
- They must be able to explain the physics of their project using the correct terms
- Commit to their project and problem solve while working collaboratively
- It has to be a game to be played (mini golf format, one group did skee ball). Players will use a golf club to hit the ball in attempts to obtain a hole in one. So include a level of difficulty or amazement for entertainment. some have alternate routes the ball can travel including traps, while others earn points when reaching a certain destination within the course.
What makes this project such a huge success is students whom are not usually academically strong perform very well on their End of Grade State Assessments in Science by learning through hands-on projects.
This project has given me some celebrity status as the First Tee of Charlotte found out about the project and shared it on The Golf Channel.
http://www.golfchannel.com/media/first-tee-charlotte-north-carolina/
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| Cooper Tees Off |
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