Investigating Friction: Investigate how the force of friction opposes motion. Learn how to describe and measure motion. Describe how force affects motion. List the three laws of motion.

Students will learn that speed, velocity, and changes in velocity are the result of the action of forces on objects. They will draw logical conclusions, identify cause and effect, predict probable actions and outcomes, create graphs, and explain how the force of friction opposes motion. Students will apply their knowledge of the three laws of motion. The students will devise and create a balloon powered car. The design of their car should be functional yet attractive. The students will measure the car's forward progress in meters and centimeters. They will weigh their cars in grams. The students will observe their classmate's races noting in their science notebooks why they think they were successful or not. Students will evaluate their own cars identifying design flaws that would bring them success on at least one of the surfaces. The class will discuss results from the activity and share their graphs. The students could also calculate average speed and velocity by not only measuring the distance, but time the car as well. We will also use our data to determine momentum.

This is a sixth grade activity which can be done with any size class. The activity takes about three class periods; one period for each of the race days and one to analyze results. (Some time at home to build the cars and construct the graphs). The cars will be constructed at home and the students should be informed that the cars can be build of everyday items such as pop bottles, facial tissue boxes.... The wheels cannot come off of toy cars or anything that was originally meant to be wheels. A large space with linoleum and carpeting as well as perhaps the school parking lot (weather permitting) is needed to race the cars. Supplies needed at school: extra balloons, meter sticks, stop watch, scale, and graph paper. The students will have already studied the concepts of gravity, mass, force, and the laws of motion. We will begin by questioning the students on what they know about friction. This activity is a nice segway to our next chapter, simple machines.

Students will have studied Chapter 1 of Unit F, Forces and Motion. This unit covers mass, gravity, and newtons. The next chapter involves speed, average speed, velocity, the laws of motion, and friction. I would start this unit out by asking them to write in their science notebooks what they know about speed, average speed, velocity, the laws of motion, and friction. I'm quite confident that they will have a good understanding of speed ( having ridden in cars) and average speed ( finding averages is a big part of 6th grade math), so the focus of the whole chapter will be all of these, but especially velocity, friction, and the laws. After they have written what they know in the notebooks, I will ask them to write in their notebooks any questions they have about speed, velocity, or friction. I will then explain to them that we will try to answer their questions by having a car race. I will then share the "rules": The car must have at least three wheels; the wheels cannot be anything that was originally meant to be wheels. The car cannot leave the ground. The car will be powered by no more than two 9" balloons and cannot be powered by anything else. The cars can essentially be built from garbage: pop bottles, boxes. The car should be decorated and possibly named. The students will be given one week to complete their car. On race day the students will be measurers and time keepers for each other. The cars will race once on tar, once on linoleum, once on carpeting. Time, measured in seconds, will be noted at each meter mark, and total distance will be measured. The students will carefully watch their peers for design improvements and noting friction and drag. After noting successes and failures, the students will take their cars home to improve their design and decide which surface will allow their car to perform at peak performance. The next day the students will have one attempt to improve upon yesterday's performance. The students will then take their data and construct a graph of their choosing. We will then as a class we will do an example of finding velocity. We will then, as a class, collect questions posed at the beginning of the activity and try to answer them and also pose any new questions generated. Some of this activity is based on an original activity from Harcourt Science copyright 2002, unit F

Make sure to have extra balloons on hand as students often believe bigger is always better. Review directions on how to operate a stop watch and check for understanding in measuring in meters. I have used science notebooks before, but I intend to use them at a much more meaningful level. I wanted the students to have more fun in science. I am not really comfortable with the forces and machines unit, so I thought this one would be a good one to focus on this summer. I think the students will retain the information a lot longer while having fun at the same time.

There is of course the end of chapter test which I will use, but the second day of racing will be the performance assessment. If they return to school the second day with an improved machine which resists friction, that will prove their ability to construct, devise, create, measure, observe, manipulate, evaluate, revise, design, analyze, reflect, reason, graph, think, investigate, critique, and generate. The students will turn in their graphs showing speed and velocity. These graphs will also demonstrate their knowledge of calculating speed, average speed, and velocity. Science notebooks will also be spot checked for completion

6.1.2.1.1 Identify a common engineered system and evaluate its impact on the daily life of humans.
6.1.2.1.2 Recognize that there is no perfect design and that new technologies have consequences that may increase some risks and decrease others.
6.1.2.1.4 Explain the importance of learning from past failures, in order to inform future designs of similar products or systems.
6.1.2.2.1 Apply and document an engineering design process that includes identifying criteria and constraints, making representatives, testing and evaluations, and refining the design as needed to construct a product or system that solves a problem.
6.2.2.1.1 Measure and calculate the speed of an object that is traveling in a straight line.
6.2.2.1.2 Graph an object's position as a function of time and an object's speed as a function of time for an object traveling in a straight line and use the graphs to describe the object's motion.