Acting Potential

Ron Toomer, a famous roller coaster designer, suffered from motion sickness. Pupils design their own roller coasters, learning about potential and kinetic energy in the process. Labs focus on the importance of drop height, energy...

After reading a brief overview of automobile history and introduction to energy and motion, automotive engineering teams plan, construct, test, and evaluate a rubber-band-powered car. This manipulative experience can enrich understanding...

Angry Birds prepared them, but now pupils must prove their skills with projectiles! Scholars test different variables to determine which ones impact the distance the projectile flies. The experiment provides connections to kinetic and...

Discover the science of NASCAR! Young scholars rev up their learning as they explore aerodynamic principles. Hands-on activities help learners understand concepts of friction, kinetic energy, and potential energy.

Take your class on the ride of their lives! Physical science scholars get an in-depth look at potential and kinetic energies in an amusement park-themed unit. Students research, design, and promote their own amusement parks, complete...

Energy transformations happen everywhere, every second of the day. The energy transformation common to most scholars is potential and kinetic energy. The three-week lesson covers multiple types of energy transformations through...

You will need to prepare either a class set or a single demonstration catapult in order to teach this powerful lesson on kinetic and potential energy. Activity sheets are provided to walk learners through the construction of a catapult....

In the third and final lesson in the series, learners synthesize the knowledge they have obtained about food systems to define a problem and propose a solution. While this could be a larger world problem, by keeping it focused on food...

What a creative way to introduce the Law of Conservation of Energy! Learners create a medieval weapon called a trebuchet in order to explore the concept of kinetic energy and potential energy. There are worksheets, resource links, and...

In the third and final lesson in the series on the impacts of climate change, learners synthesize the knowledge they have accumulated by identifying potential areas of concern for their school due to effects of drought and/or flooding,...