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...
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
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.
Curated OER
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.
Curated OER
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...
Teach Engineering
Bouncing Balls
How high will it bounce? Groups determine the height different balls bounce off of different surfaces. By performing the necessary calculations, they determine the initial and final momentum of the balls. The included worksheet provides...
Curated OER
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.
Khan Academy
Challenge: Bouncy Ball
Create your own bouncing ball program with this guided activity. Java Script code that sends a ball down the screen is provided. The task is to fix the code to make it bounce up when it hits the bottom of the screen and then down again...
Curated OER
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....
101 Questions
Pool Bounce
Use geometry to improve your pool game! Learners analyze the front half of a pool shot to determine its resulting path. By measuring the angle of incidence, they are able to predict the path of the ball.
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
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.
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
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...
Curated OER
Make a Bouncy Custard Ball
In this science experiment worksheet, learners mix borax, custard powder (pudding mix?), glue and water to make a bouncy ball. Students carry out bouncing and stretching investigations.