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Roller Coaster ActivityRoller Coaster Activity
Publisher
Museum of Science
Resource Details
Curator Rating
Educator Rating
Not yet Rated
Grade
K - 6th
Subjects
Science
4 more...
Resource Type
Activities & Projects
Audience
For Teacher Use
Duration
1 hr
Instructional Strategy
Hands-on Activity
Usage Permissions
Fine Print
Activity

Roller Coaster

Curated and Reviewed by Lesson Planet
This Roller Coaster activity also includes:
  • Activity
  • Vocabulary
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Take a marble out for a roll. Using a section of flexible tubing, pupils build a roller coaster that will allow for a marble to act as the car. Learners create a loop, hill, and jump in their coasters by taping the tubing to different supports. The scholars test their designs by trying to get the marble all the way along the tube and into a cup at the end.

8 Views 9 Downloads

Concepts

kinetic energy, gravitational potential energy, potential energy, roller coasters

Additional Tags

science

Instructional Ideas

  • Create roller coasters from the same length of tubing and determine which is faster
  • If the track fails have pupils determine what went wrong and fix it

Classroom Considerations

  • Requires space large enough to lay out the six feet of roller coaster track

Pros

  • Includes suggestions for extensions
  • Contains a scientific description of what is happening with the roller coaster

Cons

  • None

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Lesson Plan

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Lesson Plan

Rolling with Roller Coasters

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Activity

Build a Roller Coaster

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Let the good times roll as young thrill seekers build a roller coaster on school grounds. Future engineers design and build a roller coaster from flexible tubing. The roller coaster is for a marble, so there will be plenty of room to let...
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Activity

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It's time to slow your roll! Can your class create a track that allows a marble to roll as slowly as possible? Teams of science scholars collaborate to design, build, and test their tubes while learning about gravity and friction.
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Lesson Plan

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Twisting and turning through the sky, roller coasters are popular attractions at amusement parks around the world, but how exactly do they work? Explore the physics behind these thrilling rides with an engineering design activity....
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Lesson Plan

Roller Coaster Fun

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Third graders review the effects of gravity on how objects move. In groups, they design a roller coaster and share it with their classmates. Using materials given to them, they build their roller coaster and let a ball roll on the...
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Lesson Plan

Tubularastic Roller Coaster

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Students observe the effect of gravity on objects. They use tubing and other materials to simulate a roller caster. Afterward, they create a journal to write their observations and summaries.
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Lesson Plan

The Ultimate Roller Coaster Contest

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Middle schoolers explain how conservation of energy applies to roller coasters. In this physics lesson, students construct their own coasters according to a specified criteria. They make modifications to their design when...
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Interactive

Loop-the-Loop

CK-12 Foundation
What prevents a roller coaster from falling when it goes upside down? Scholars experiment with a roller coaster simulation controlling the mass of the coaster, the height of the hill, and the radius of the loop. They learn which factors...
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