PBL conference session 6

Session 6

Session 6
Roller Coasters and Energy Conservation
Jeff Milbourne – NC School of Science and Math
- Kids design roller coaster for CaroWinds
- Scaffolding activities
o 1 what makes an enjoyable roller coaster?
 Used blog to post ideas and drawings
o 2 energy skate park
 Think about new physics that is involved in roller coasters
 Can’t show motion on a board – use 3D and games and interactive
 phet in Google
o 3 energy-go-round
 Stations made from everyday objects
 Get kids to think about how energy changes
 More traditional lab activities
o 4 work/energy challenges
 Quantitative problems – go from conceptual to computational problems
o 5 human horsepower
 Run up a flight of stairs and find out your horse power
 Idea of work and power
o Web conference with each other using illuminate to collaborate and communicate with each other
o Final product
 Safety of roller coaster
 Presentation – most chose PowerPoint
 Understanding of energy
o Mini –projects
 Driver’s safety manual – motion
 Usian bolt at the Beijing Olympics – motion
 A traffic nightmare – collisions
 Bungee jumping – simple harmonic motion
 The large Hadron collider – magnetism
 Volcanism on lo – energy
o milbourne@ncssm.edu
o 919-416-2762