STEM for Teachers
Temperature and Bounce
Take part in a fun experiment and hold an impromptu bouncing contest with your class. Young scientists heat and cool balls before bouncing them to determine whether temperature changes affect how they bounce. The set of STEM lesson plans...
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Bocce Ball - Lesson 6
Bocce ball - lesson 6 takes the game indoors and makes some adaptations. Use bean bags or juggling balls that won't bounce too much to play indoors. The focus is on throwing and using good form. The strategy will be slightly different...
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Ball Bounce Experiment
Students investigate different balls' abilities to bounce. They conduct a Ball Bounce Height Comparison and Ball Bounce Time Comparison, complete a worksheet, graph the results of their experiment, and answer investigating questions.
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Swiss Ball Square Dance
Combine square dancing and a Swiss ball. There are quite a few square dance moves and how to do them while sitting on, or carrying a Swiss ball. Teach these square dance moves to the class. Then have them work together in small groups to...
Center for Learning in Action
Properties of Balls
Enhance your states of matter lessons with a hands-on science investigation that compares six different balls' color, texture, size, weight, ability to bounce, and buoyancy.
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Bounce Back - The Long and Short of It
Upper elementary scientists test basketballs with differing amounts of air to find if inflation affects bounce height. The lesson introduction poses the question of whether or not the composition of a ball determines bounce height, but...
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Baseball Activity: Bouncing Balls
Students explore the concept of motion. In this hands-on physics instructional activity, students examine how the construction of baseballs and the temperature they are stored at affect their bounce.
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Class Activity: BOUNCE!
Kinematic equations are used to calculate the velocity and momentum of different types of balls bounced on different surfaces. The lesson plan is detailed and provides a materials list, background information, and procedures....
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Striking - Toss and Hit
Help your young athletes practice hitting a ball with these fun activities. Bring in all kinds of soft bats and soft balls. Experiment with hitting balls using different size bats. Work on hand-eye coordination. Teach them the optimum...
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Collisions and Momentum: Bouncing Balls
Students explore the concepts of potential and kinetic energy by bouncing assorted balls on different surfaces and calculating the momentum for each ball. They give examples of collisions and momentum in sports and understand that...
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Curve Ball
Create a Height-Time plot of a bouncing ball using a graphing calculator. Graph height as a function of time and identify the vertex form of a quadratic equation that is generated to describe the ball's motion. Finally, answer questions...
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Bouncing Ball
Students collect height versus time data of a bouncing ball using the CBR 2™ data collection device. Using a quadratic equation they graph scatter plots, graph and interpret a quadratic function, apply the vertex form of a quadratic...
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Bouncing Ball : Function Families
A bouncing ball serves as more than entertainment when learning to apply quadratic functions to real-world events. This is the second of a two-part lesson, which can also be accessed from the website. The instructions say to measure the...
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Basketball Bounces, Assessment Variation 1
This highly scaffolded, summative assessment tasks learners to choose the model that represents the height of a bouncing basketball given the data in graph and table form. Learners then use the model to answer questions about the...
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Basketball Bounces, Assessment Variation 2
This un-scaffold summative assessment tasks learners to use the height of a bouncing basketball, given the data in graph and table form, to choose the model that is represented. Learners then use the model to answer questions about the...
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Exploration Sequence of Bounces
New skills are developed as students use graphing calculators and ranger technology to capture and graph the sequence of bounces a ball makes when dropped. After recording the height of four or more bounces, they use the collected data...
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Super-Ball Physics
Students experiment with varied balls to determine the bounce factor in centimeters. In this physics instructional activity, students experiment to find the height a ball must be dropped from the have the highest bounce rate. Students...
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Bouncing off the Walls
Third graders compare the bouncing height of different types of balls. In this science activity, 3rd graders explain the importance of repeated experimentation in science. They record their result and share them with the class.
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Making Bouncing Balls
Students investigate the movement of balls and use different materials to make balls. In this bouncing balls lesson, students explore the movement of balls, they investigate the inside of balls and they design and make their own balls...
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Curve Ball
Learners explore the concept of parabolas by collecting quadratic data on a bouncing ball as it is falling using a motion detector. They plot the data and determine the equation of the quadratic in vertex form, then determine the values...
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Bounce With Me
How many practice lay-ups do you think Michael Jordan has done in his lifetime? Too many to count, but he had to start somewhere! Practice is the key to getting better in any activity. Look through this basketball lesson as there are...
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How to Bounce a Ball
Learners practice bouncing a basketball with their right and left hands as well as running while bouncing.
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Bouncing Balls
Students work together to examine how different types of balls react to colliding with different surfaces. They discover the difference between elastic and inelastic collisions. They practice calculating momentum as well.
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Bounce Back Ball
Fifth graders work in teams of four to measure the rebound heights of a tennis ball dropped from four different heights. They investigate with the bouncing balls to measure changes in the type of energy they possess.