Kristy Mall -5E Lesson Plan Kinetic and Potential Energy

Lesson Title: Kinetic and Potential Energy

The Ball Drop Experiment

Subject area / course / grade level: 5th and 6th Grade Science Introduction: The potential and kinetic energy of a tennis ball in a tennis match or a baseball in a baseball game show the difference between energy of Position or movement. Understanding the transfer of energy and the relationship between potential and kinetic energy is the purpose of this lesson. Lesson Length: 2-50 minute classes Materials: Materials: Tennis balls, ping pong balls, golf balls, graph paper, Science Journal , meter stick. Lesson Overview: Students will observe and experiment with the potential and kinetic energy of different balls. Students will write about their observations, hypotheses and conclusions. They will make a data table of their findings and analyze their data by making a graph. Later they will publish their findings by comparing their conclusions. Tennessee Standards: 6th Grade Science SPI 0607.10.2 Interpret the relationship between potential and kinetic energy. Science - SPI 0607.Inq.3 Interpret and translate data in a table, graph, or diagram. Science - SPI 0607.Inq.1 Design a simple experimental procedure with an identified control and appropriate variables. Science - SPI 0607.Inq.4 Draw a conclusion that establishes a cause and effect Math - SPI 0606.1.1 Make conjectures and predictions based on data. 5th Grade Science SPI 0507.12.3 Design and explain an investigation exploring the earths pull on objects. 0506.5.3 Design investigations to address a question and consider how data collection methods affect the nature of the data set. SPI 0506.5.1 Depict data using various representations, including decimal and/or fractional data. SPI 0506.5.2 Make predictions based on various data representations, including double bar and line graphs. SPI 0506.5.3 Calculate measures of central tendency to analyze data.

Lesson objective(s): The Learner Will: Interpret the relationship between potential and kinetic energy. Interpret and translate data in a table, graph. Students will Design a simple experimental procedure with an identified control and appropriate variables. Create and Analyze a data set resulting from an experiment. Determine how different variables affect results. Students will make predictions based on data.

ENGAGEMENT Exploration of Pre-Instruction Understanding Brainstorm the meaning of energy, potential energy and kinetic energy Toss a ping pong ball up and say kinetic. Catch it and say potential. Repeat again several times until students are quiet and are engaged. Toss the ping pong ball to a student and say kinetic. Prompt the student to say potential. Allow student to toss the ball back to you saying kinetic and potential at the right times. Continue tossing the ball back and forth to students labeling kinetic and potential. Have students write in their notebooks the terms potential and kinetic energy and have them write a definition for each. Ask students what they wrote and write all ideas on the board, accepting all ideas. Come to a consensus as a class as to the meaning of potential and kinetic energy. Have them think of how potential and kinetic energy related. Remind them that all questions that scientists ask can be adequately tested and this is our goal in this section. Discuss How do we know they are related? Now tell students they are going to design a lab to test how potential and kinetic energy of balls are related.

EXPLORATION

Describe what hands-on/minds-on activities students will be doing. List big idea conceptual questions the teacher will use to encourage and/or focus students exploration

o Pre-Laboratory Activities Divide students into groups of 3-4 people. Use the student template to prepare scientists notebook for the lab

Beginning ideas from exploration of pre-instruction understanding Materials: ball, meter stick Safety: eye protection, control balls Have students Label and underline the heading Hypothesis

Students design an experiment to answer the following question. If the ball is held at ________cm high, it will bounce to _________ cm high Explain that this is an educated guess based upon what they know about bouncing balls..

o Pick five different heights to test some higher and some lower - that are at least 10cm apart. Students will have five hypotheses statements (see above), one for each height. o The starting height of the ball and its bounce are the control - all other bounces will be compared to this. o The independent variable is the starting height and the height of the bounce is the dependent variable. o Once the hypotheses are approved, give each group a ball to begin the lab Ask students to enter a Testing section in their scientist notebook. Have them create a data table to log their results. Explain how the data will be collected by doing an example for them. Then explain that the collected data will be used to create a graph, so they need to be as accurate as possible in recording their results. In this experiment the data table will be used in the Testing part of the experiment and the graph will be used in the analysis phase. o Provide an example of what the data table should look like.

Height of Ball vs Ball Bounce

Ball type_____ Starting height (cm) Bounce height (cm) Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 4 Trial 5

o Participation in the Laboratory Activity Begin the experiment by modeling for them how to bounce a ball and measure the height of the bounce. Discuss ways to assure that the results will be consistent: The first ball will be a ping pong ball. 1. Be sure that the stick is held straight up and not at an angle. 2. Be sure that a surface is chosen that will promote bounce and not adversely affect the bounce of the ball. 3. Have at least two of the students watch the results of the bounce in order to form a consensus on the height of the bounce. 4. Have students to break into groups to begin their experiments. Students begin the testing phase of the experiment recording their data, Monitor the process of carrying out the experiment and the

recording of data. Students write their data in their scientists notebook data table. Have students label and underline the next heading Analysis Using the data in the data table, students graph their data by making their line graph (Independent variable on x-axis - beginning height of ball- and dependent variable on y-axis height of bounce). Students will create a title for the graph and will label the x and y axis. Have students label and underline the next heading Draw Conclusions After looking at their graphs, students write an explanation of their results that include the statement Have students label and underline the next heading Communicate Results Next, students compare their findings with the other groups by writing their statements on the board , on group white boards, or on butcher paper Group discussion of results After students have shared the first round of results, have them repeat the experiment with the golf ball. First, they need to make a prediction about what the golf ball will do. Do they think it will bounce the same? Why or why not? Then, have them repeat the steps used in the first round of experiments. After they have recorded their results, have them share the results as a class and list their data on the board. Have students discuss why they believe the results are the way they are. What factors affect the difference/similarities in the results? For the final phase, have students repeat the experiment with a tennis ball. Have them make predications about what the results will be before they begin, and then create a data set with the tennis ball. Have them share their results on the board. Were their predications accurate? What variables do they believe affected the results? Looking at the results, do they see a trend? Discuss.

EXPLANATION
Student explanations should precede introduction of terms or explanations by the teacher. What questions or techniques will the teacher use to help students connect their exploration to the concept under examination? List higher order thinking questions which teachers will use to solicit student explanations and help them to justify their explanations.

The teacher will explain the concept of independent and dependent variables by showing that the independent variable is what we control in the experiment. Ask them if we control the starting height or how high the ball will bounce. Students should be able to label the independent variable as the starting height and the height of the bounce as the dependent variable. When graphing, the teacher will ask them how they think the data should be organized to create a bar graph. Explain how the independent and dependent variables need to be placed on the graph : f ball- and dependent variable on y-axis height of bounce). Have them create a bar for each type of ball. Have them use a different color for each bar so that they can easily see the results from each type of ball and create a key to explain how to read the graph.

ELABORATION
Describe how students will develop a more sophisticated understanding of the concept. What vocabulary will be introduced and how will it connect to students observations? How is this knowledge applied in our daily lives?

When students share their group graphs it will become apparent if they have drawn the data correctly and if they have correctly titled the graph or labeled the x and y axis. Students will be able to understand the vocabulary: potential and kinetic energy; Xaxis, Y-axis, independent variable and dependent variable. Explain how scientists have to use the same types of methods data collecting and creating graphs to show results. Ask if they have seen examples of that type of data collection and ask them to share where they have seen it.

EVALUATION

How will students demonstrate that they have achieved the lesson objective? This should be embedded throughout the lesson as well as at the end of the lesson

Students will write a reflection of what they learned from sharing group results as part of the Communicate Results phase of the experiment. The scientist journals and experiment results can be used as assessment tools. Other assessments may include a quiz over potential and kinetic energy that includes having students explain the concepts, or have students make a prediction based on their data how high their ball would need to be held in order to bounce as high as a basketball goal.

Another form of assessment would be to allow the students to create a 4th round of the same experiments using a ball of their choice. It would be interesting to see their choices, and to hear the rationale of why they chose the type of ball that they chose. Have students share results asking for predictions of what the results were before actually sharing the results. Have students discuss what variables affected their results. Were these expected? Explain.