Water Bottle Rockets- Understanding Energy

Heather Reighard
Chaska High School
Chaska,MN
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Summary

In this activity, students will design and construct a water bottle rocket. Students will demonstrate understanding of a good experimental design and analysis of results.

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Learning Goals

Students will use prior knowledge to design and build a water bottle rocket. Students will understand the different factors that affect the flight of a rocket. Upon completion of flight of the rocket, students will find the height, speed, potential and kinetic energy of the rocket.

Context for Use

This activity is can be done with 6th-9th grade students with some modifications. I do this activity after teaching students Newton's Laws and Energy.

Description and Teaching Materials

For the rocket activity, I use the Rocket tip sheet to begin to discuss the factors that affect the flight height and speed. I hand out the rocket instruction sheet and talk to students about the rocket project being a final wrap-up of the kinematics unit. I usually ask students to bring a water bottle to class along with some materials. I give the students one class period to work in class. I provide cardboard to students in order for them to find the Center of Drag and Center of Gravity for their rocket to reach it's maximum height (see attached materials). I use a rocket launcher attached to a air compressor (150psi). Students stand back at least 20m for safety.
Prior to the actual launch, we do the Fuel Lab which allows students to discover how much water should be added to their rockets. Rocket tips for Students (Microsoft Word 79kB Aug25 09) Rocket Criteria (Microsoft Word 31kB Aug25 09) Questions/calculations (Microsoft Word 36kB Aug25 09) Fuel Lab (Microsoft Word 41kB Aug25 09) Fuel Lab- class data (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 11kB Aug25 09)

Teaching Notes and Tips

A rocket launcher can be built or purchased here.
I find it works better to have each student build a rocket and do analysis.

Assessment

Students turn in the Fuel Lab, Rocket packet with questions and calculations, and scale drawing of the height the rocket has achieved.

Standards

1. Forces and inertia determine the motion of objects.
9P.2.2.1.2 Apply Newton's three laws of motion to calculate and analyze the effect of forces and momentum on motion.
9P.2.2.1.3 Use gravitational force to explain the motion of objects near Earth and in the universe.