Balloon Rockets
Initial Publication Date: September 10, 2008
Summary
In this activity, students will learn that compressed air creates pressure to propel an air balloon. Students will create a graph in their science journals based on the relationship between the number of air pumps and the distance the balloon travels.
CollapseLearning Goals
Vocabulary Words:
-Force
-Pressure
-Propel
-Inflate
-Distance
In this activity, students will learn that the air inside a balloon is compressed by the rubber skin of the balloon. They will also learn that the pressure from the compressed air will make the balloon travel along the string. The higher-order thinking skills used will be creating the rocket, questioning, data collection and observation.
Concepts:
-Air is pushing out
-Force
-Pressure
-Propel
-Inflate
-Distance
In this activity, students will learn that the air inside a balloon is compressed by the rubber skin of the balloon. They will also learn that the pressure from the compressed air will make the balloon travel along the string. The higher-order thinking skills used will be creating the rocket, questioning, data collection and observation.
Concepts:
-Air is pushing out
-When something is pushed it will move (force)
-Force causes change
-No force causes no change
Context for Use
The Air and Weather kit is a first grade FOSS science unit.
Our class sizes range from 20-24 students
This is a hands on activity-on activity.
You will need the materials provided by the FOSS kit. They are listed in the investigation lesson guide on page 34.
They should already know that air is matter and takes up space and interacts with objects, and air resistance affects how things move.
Time needed: one 50 minute lesson.
Easily adaptable
Students will need tape measures and graph paper which not included in the FOSS Kit.
Our class sizes range from 20-24 students
This is a hands on activity-on activity.
You will need the materials provided by the FOSS kit. They are listed in the investigation lesson guide on page 34.
They should already know that air is matter and takes up space and interacts with objects, and air resistance affects how things move.
Time needed: one 50 minute lesson.
Easily adaptable
Students will need tape measures and graph paper which not included in the FOSS Kit.
Description and Teaching Materials
Students set up a balloon-rocket system and find out how far the air in the balloon will propel the system along.
FOSS Science-Air and Weather unit. After watching a demonstration of the bottle rocket lesson from FOSS students will work in groups of 4-5 and discover the amount of air in the balloon changes the distance the balloon travels. They need to discover on their own, they will need a new balloon each time due to the stretching out the balloon and changing its shape and amount of air it contains. The students will create a graph based on the number of pumps of air in the balloon and the distance the balloon travels.
FOSS Science-Air and Weather unit. After watching a demonstration of the bottle rocket lesson from FOSS students will work in groups of 4-5 and discover the amount of air in the balloon changes the distance the balloon travels. They need to discover on their own, they will need a new balloon each time due to the stretching out the balloon and changing its shape and amount of air it contains. The students will create a graph based on the number of pumps of air in the balloon and the distance the balloon travels.
Teaching Notes and Tips
After they experiment in their small groups, we then repeated the experiment whole group and used that data for the graphing piece.
How it is different we include observations, guided inquiry and graphing.
How it is different we include observations, guided inquiry and graphing.
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Assessment
We will assess using observations and discussions with the whole class as well as their completed graph.
Standards
First Grade
1.1.b 1
Second Grade
2.11.d.1 & 2
1.1.b 1
Second Grade
2.11.d.1 & 2