What do the movies October Key and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone have in common? The fourth installment of a five-part module presents equations regarding projectile motion and how to rearrange them. Scholars view video clips...

Make solutions to projectile motion problems magically appear using equations. Pupils watch a clip from a Harry Potter movie and find the length of time it takes for a remembrall to fall into Harry's hands. They use a projectile motion...

You've got to pump it up! Using the equations for projectile motion and Bernoulli's Principle, class members calculate the water pressure in a water gun. The pupils collect data on the number of pumps and distance traveled in order...

Just this once, it's okay to throw things in class. Out of craft sticks and rubber bands, pupils build catapults to launch an object of choice. This can be a ping-pong ball, a marshmallow, or any other small item. As long as it hits the...

Watch your marshmallows fly. The engaging STEM activity has groups create a catapult to launch marshmallows. After testing their prototypes, they consider improvements and redesign their catapults.

NASA's LCROSS mission is dropping a probe into a lunar crater. Groups design a system to travel down a zip line and drop a marble onto a target in the classroom. The groups then modify their designs based upon testing. 

Young engineers work in teams to design and build their own trebuchets according to certain criteria; they must be able to launch a mini marshmallow accurately into a pie tin. Background reading material, a planning sheet for trebuchet...

After a brief lecture on levers, torque, projectiles, and the five-step engineering design cycle, young physical science learners or engineers build catapults out of craft sticks. This is an open-ended exploration of what works and what...

Students explain the four stroke process in internal combustion engines. In this physics lesson, students role play this process and present their reenactment in class. They draw and label the diagram of an internal combustion engine.

Under the "The Science Behind Harry Potter" theme, a succession of diverse complex scientific topics are presented to students through direct immersive interaction. Student interest is piqued by the incorporation of popular culture into...

Students use a LEGO ball shooter to demonstrate and analyze the motion of a projectile through use of a line graph. This activity involves using a method of data organization and trend observation with respect to dynamic experimentation...

Students explore electromagnetism and engineering concepts using optimization techniques to design an efficient magnetic launcher. Groups start by algebraically solving the equations of motion for the velocity at the time when a...

During this engineering design/build project, students investigate many different solutions to a problem. Their design challenge is to find a way to get school t-shirts up into the stands during home sporting events. They follow the...