(Page 7 in your notebook is for the web link; you will discover the links at the bottom of this page.)
Motion and Design is our new Science unit! We are beginning this unit with the students discovering what they know about motion and design. One student took this question to the extreme and designed something that actually has motion.
What a great way to start off the unit!
In the first lesson the students are introduced to the physics of motion and the challenges of creating a technical design.
This first week the students will be introduced to how to make a design of a standard vehicle from a technical drawing, create a vehicle that has motion, and analyzing movement and force. While doing this the students will be determining what causes friction and what effect gravity and friction have on their vehicle. The students will be comparing, designs which they have created, to designs I supply them with. In addition, the students will continue analyzing the effect force has on motion.
Force & Motion
Today the students tested the affect force has on motion.
We tested these effects by the falling weight system.
The students are discovering the principles of force as it applies to an object and how it changes the motion of that object. Using the falling weight system the students attached a string to their standard vehicle with washers as weight on the opposite end of the string. The washers, being the weight, pulled the vehicles which is a force, so the vehicle moves. The students are comparing and discussing how the motion of their vehicle changes when more or less weight is attached to the string. As a conclusion, the students determined the effect of differently weighted string on the motion of their string pulled vehicle.
We now have a “Parking Lot” for our Science unit, Motion & Design. The “Parking Lot” that I am referring to is simply a poster, where the students may post questions about the unit for us to discuss as a group. This came about because the students are engaging themselves so deeply into trying to understand everything they can about motion and design, and I was experiencing some really remarkable questions so I wanted both our class and Mrs. Short’s class to be able to interpret and discuss some of these questions together.
Aristotle
Galileo
Sir Isaac Newton
Today the students became famous engineers, who worked in design teams, to compete the design challenge. The students have been hired by "Out-of-This-World-Vehicles" to design a lunar vehicle that would move across their work space, which is 35", in five seconds. The lunar vehicle also must be capable of carrying lunar rocks. Last, the students had to draw a diagram of their vehicle.
We changed the force that gives our car motion. At first we used the falling weight system to make our vehicles have motion. Next, we used rubber bands and wrapped them around the axle which gave the standard vehicles potential energy. When we let the rubber band energy unwind it was kenetic energy. Now we are experimenting with the force of wind. Our last force we are using to propel our vehicle is a propeller. Which is on the front of a new design.
Academic Standards for Science and Technology
3.1. Unifying Themes Unifying themes of science and technology provide big ideas that integrate with significant concepts. There are only a few fundamental concepts and processes that form the framework upon which science and technology knowledges are organized - motion and forces, energy, structure of matter, change over time and machines. These themes create the context through which the content of the disciplines can be taught and are emphasized in each standard.
3.2. Inquiry and Design The nature of science and technology is characterized by applying process knowledge that enables students to become independent learners. These skills include observing, classifying, inferring, predicting, measuring, computing, estimating, communicating, using space/time relationships, defining operationally, raising questions, formulating hypotheses, testing and experimenting, designing controlled experiments, recognizing variables, manipulating variables, interpreting data, formulating models, designing models, and producing solutions. Everyone can use them to solve real-life problems. These process skills are developed across the grade levels and differ in the degree of sophistication, quantitative nature and application to the content.
3.4. Physical Science Students examine changes to materials during mixing, freezing, heating and dissolving and then learn how to observe and measure results. In chemistry students study the relationship between matter, atomic structure and its activity. Laboratory investigations of the properties of substances and their changes through a range of chemical interactions provide a basis for students to understand atomic theory and a variety of reaction types and their applications in business, agriculture and medicine. Physics deepens the understanding of the structure and properties of materials and includes atoms, waves, light, electricity, magnetism and the role of energy, forces and motion.
3.6. Technology Education Technology education is the use of accumulated knowledge to process resources to meet human needs and improve the quality of life. Students develop the ability to select and correctly use materials, tools, techniques and processes to answer questions, understand explanations and solve problems encountered in real life situations. These overriding themes require students to design, create, use, evaluate and modify systems of Biotechnologies, Information Technologies, and Physical Technologies.
Click on the links below to review skills that we are discussing in class!
