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Conservation of Energy for Middle School A gold star indicates high-quality, inquiry-based activities that follow the PhET design guidelines.



Title Conservation of Energy for Middle School
Description This is an activity that was written during a workshop for Jefferson County Middle school teachers and is collaborative effort by a group of teachers. The activity has not been tested with students.
Subject Earth Science, Physics
Level Middle School
Type Lab
Answers Included No
Language English
Keywords conservation, energy, kinetic, potential
Simulation(s) Energy Skate Park, Lunar Lander

Author(s) Jefferson County Middle School Workshop
Contact Email patricia.loeblein@colorado.edu
School / Organization Jefferson R1 Colorado
Date submitted 4/24/09
Date updated 9/2/15

Comments

I used this activity with my pre-service elementary teachers. They did well until the Lunar Lander section. When trying to apply conservation of energy to the Lunar Lander while landing (adding some thrust), students had a very hard time. It was clear that they did not have a strong understanding of gravitational potential eenrgy and kinetic energy when they got to this point - BUT they thought they knew. I had to spend a class period after this working through energy conservation by analyzing the skater at different positions on the track. There was good discussion between students so the activity seemed to be a good primer for this. Wendy   11/5/10

The activity only took 35 minutes. Wendy   11/5/10

The kids really enjoyed the skater and the pendulum. The Lunar Lander caused more frustration than anything so I'd suggest eliminating that one. Other than that, great activity. It took about 15-25 minutes for 8th graders (15 mins for advanced and 25 for intervention students). It really was nice to have this activity to break up the depth of understanding that is needed for our energy unit. It was great to see the students having fun and learning about potential and kinetic energy. Rachel Prokopchuk   2/7/12

Comment on this activity

How did you use this activity or change it for your class? Answer keys are often not available because the activities are inquiry based and lead to multiple answers. Professionally constructive comments welcome.

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