My Science Box

What understandings or goals would be assessed through this task?

•    Students will identify the forces acting on a self-propelled vehicle and explain how the motion of the vehicle demonstrates Newton’s laws.

Through what authentic performance task will students demonstrate understanding?

Task overview:

Performance tasks:

• Other-worldly sports – Students create a poster illustrating how their favorite sport might look on a planet of their choosing, explaining how differences in gravity and atmosphere could affect the forces on players of the sport and sports equipment

Summary

In this unit designed by high school teacher Kim Miyasaki, students discover that all physical objects are part of an interactive system mediated by forces, which are governed by Newton’s laws. ...

Essential Questions

Here's a great web resource:

http://wise.berkeley.edu 

Earthquake TowerSummary
In this project, students construct drinking straw towers that must withstand the shaking of a shake table. One by one, 250 gram sandbags are loaded onto the towers. The towers must remain standing for 1 minute from the start of the simulated earthquake. Students then have 2 minutes to repair any damage before another sandbag is loaded and the next earthquake test begins. Students quickly learn basic principles of earthquake engineering and architecture as well as the team skills that are a basic part of all science and engineering fields.