Goal: To Teach Children About Potential and Kinetic Energy

Abstract:
The goal of our project is to show the relationship between potential and kinetic energy through experimentation. In order to teach this lesson, each child will design a roller coaster. The roller coaster will have several requirements including at least one loop and hill. The roller coaster will only work if the heights of the initial drop, the hill, and the loop are within a specific set of proportions. In addition, the children will be asked to complete a brief worksheet demonstrating the relationship between potential and kinetic energy so that their roller coasters can be more successful.

 Preliminary Demonstration:

• Simple demonstration to allow the children to better understand energy
• Procedure:
  • Place ball at different heights of a ramp
  • Measure the distance that the ball travels before hitting the ground
  • Plot a graph of the height vs. distance of the ball
  • Ask the children to predict where the next ball will land if placed at a specific height
• Conclusion:
  • The children with almost no exposure to physics were able to see the linear relationship between the height that the ball was dropped from and the distance that the ball was able to travel.

Above is a picture of our group testing our preliminary project on a group of fourth grade students.

Revised Interactive Project:

• A more hands on and interactive project will hopefully engage the children and help them learn more about energy.
• Procedure:
  
  • Each child will first solve a series of problems in order to gain a basic understanding of the energy equations and how they can be applied.
    
  • Every team of children will receive a set of materials in order to build their own roller coasters based on the problems they just solved.
    
  • Each roller coaster must have at least one loop and one hill.
• Anticipated Results:
  
  • The children will gain a basic understanding of the general energy equations through the worksheets. These concepts will then be reinforced by the interactive project.
  • It is hoped that they will ultimately understand that a system’s total energy remains constant under the ideal circumstances given.

Above is an example of the type of problem that the children will solve on their worksheets.