Compare & Contrast Energies Lesson Plan (TEKS 6.8A): A Complete 5E Lesson for Potential and Kinetic Energy

Inside the Compare & Contrast Energies 5E Lesson

The 5E instructional model walks students through five phases: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. It flips the traditional lecture-first sequence on its head. Students explore a concept hands-on before you ever explain it, which means by the time you do explain it, they have something to hook the vocabulary onto.

I switched to the 5E model years ago and stopped going back. Kids retain more, ask better questions, and stop staring at me waiting to be told the answer. The Compare & Contrast Energies 5E Lesson is built on this framework from start to finish. Here's how it plays out across the five phases.

🎯 Engage

Day one is a teacher-led hands-on hook that gets students thinking about stored energy versus moving energy before they ever hear the words "potential" and "kinetic." Students use simple classroom materials (rubber bands, marbles, ramps, and a few stretchy objects) to compare two objects at a time and decide which one has more stored energy and which one has more motion energy.

By the end of the period, kids have sketched four scenarios on their student sheet in their own hand, and they can explain in their own words why a stretched rubber band, a ball at the top of a ramp, and a moving marble are all examples of energy. Nobody has been lectured yet. That's the point. They're walking into the rest of the unit with a working mental model, not a memorized definition.

What's included in the Engage:

• Teacher directions for the hands-on hook activity
• Printable student observation sheet
• Answer key for the discussion questions
• Four learning objective slides (standard verbatim, "Compare and contrast" highlighted, "I CAN...", and "WE WILL...")
• An illustrated Energy Word Wall in English and Spanish covering the unit vocabulary

🔬 Explore

The Compare & Contrast Energies Station Lab is the heart of the Explore phase. Students rotate through 8 stations (plus a 9th challenge station for early finishers) over one to two class periods. The Station Lab is split into four input stations (where kids take in new information) and four output stations (where they show what they learned).

The four input stations:

• 🎬 Watch It! — Students watch a short video on potential and kinetic energy and answer guided questions.
• 📖 Read It! — A one-page reading passage at two differentiated levels, with a Spanish version included.
• 🔬 Explore It! — A ramp-and-marble investigation where students change height (potential) and observe the change in speed at the bottom (kinetic).
• 💻 Research It! — Reference cards on gravitational, elastic, and chemical potential energy plus kinetic energy examples.

The four output stations:

• 📋 Organize It! — A card sort where students place real-world scenarios under potential, kinetic, or both.
• 🎨 Illustrate It! — Students draw a roller coaster track and label PE and KE at each point along the ride.
• ✍️ Write It! — Three open-ended questions in complete sentences (this is where you see who really gets it).
• 📝 Assess It! — A short formative check with multiple choice and a fill-in-the-blank vocabulary paragraph.

Print and digital versions are both included. If you want the full breakdown of what happens at every single station, what students produce, and how to set it up, that's in our dedicated Station Lab post.

→ Read the full Compare & Contrast Energies Station Lab walkthrough 8 stations, materials list, teacher tips

The Station Lab is included in the full 5E lesson. You don't need to buy it separately if you're getting the whole unit.

📚 Explain

Here's the real payoff of doing the Engage and Explore before the Explain: by the time kids hit this phase, they've already lifted, dropped, stretched, and rolled their way through both kinds of energy. They have a working understanding before you ever start naming things. The discussions get deeper, the questions get sharper, and you spend less time defining and more time pushing their thinking.

The Compare & Contrast Energies Presentation walks 6th graders through the full scope of TEKS 6.8A, one concept at a time, with diagrams on nearly every slide. The deck opens with a quick reset on what energy actually is (the ability to cause change or do work) and the idea that energy is found in every object. From there it builds out the framework: every form of energy is either potential (stored) or kinetic (in motion). Then the deck zooms in on each one.

Students learn that kinetic energy is the energy of motion, measured in joules, and that the amount depends on two factors: the mass of the object and its speed. Greater mass means greater KE. Greater speed means greater KE. The deck uses two side-by-side comparison diagrams (different masses moving at the same speed, then same mass at different speeds) so students can predict and justify which object has more kinetic energy before they get told.

Then the deck shifts to potential energy: stored energy due to position, shape, or chemical composition. The amount depends on mass and height (or stretch, or chemical makeup, depending on the form). Three forms get explored in detail: gravitational potential energy (a hydropower dam reservoir, a picture frame on a wall, a skydiver before the jump), elastic potential energy (a pulled-back bowstring, a stretched trampoline, a compressed spring), and chemical potential energy (food, batteries, gasoline). At every step, students physically compare two scenarios and pick which one has more PE and why.

The deck closes with the comparison the standard is asking for: potential and kinetic energy side by side. Students see that the two are not opposites. A roller coaster car halfway down the first drop has both. A bouncing ball has both. As one goes up, the other comes down, and the total stays roughly the same. That "both at once" idea is the part where most 6th graders get stuck, so the deck has a built-in Quick Action INB where they label PE and KE at multiple points on a swinging pendulum and on a Newton's cradle.

What makes this Presentation different from a typical energy slideshow is that kids are doing something on almost every single slide. It's not a lecture deck. It's a participation deck. "Your answer:" prompts appear on most slides, Brain Breaks reset attention every few slides, Quick Action INB tasks show up throughout, and Think About It prompts push deeper into bigger ideas (which roller coaster would be faster, how to design a higher-flying model rocket). The deck closes with a Check for Understanding tied back to the Essential Questions.

The Explain materials in this product include:

• An editable 27-slide Presentation at two differentiated levels (Dependent and Modified), works in PowerPoint or Google Slides
• A guided fill-in-the-blank student notes handout that mirrors the Presentation, with answer key
• A Paper Interactive Notebook (English and Spanish) students cut, fold, and glue into their notebooks
• A Digital Interactive Notebook at both levels with answer keys, for 1:1 classrooms or Google Classroom

The Explain runs across two class periods. The built-in Think About It prompts are where the real discussion happens, so let those breathe.

🛠️ Elaborate

The Elaborate phase is where students stretch what they learned about potential and kinetic energy and put it into a project of their choosing. In this 6th grade energy lesson, that's a Student Choice Project board with six different project options plus a "design your own" pathway.

Students might design a roller coaster track and label PE and KE at every hill, build a Rube Goldberg-style chain reaction that shows multiple PE-to-KE swaps, or write a script for a video where two superheroes argue about which one has more energy at rest. There are options for kids who love to write, kids who love to draw, kids who love to build, and kids who love to perform. Whatever the project, the point is the same: students apply potential and kinetic energy to a real-world artifact instead of a worksheet.

Choice is the whole point. By letting students pick how they show their thinking, you get more authentic work for TEKS 6.8A and you actually get to see what they understand about comparing and contrasting the two energy types.

Two differentiated versions in one file

The standard version is for students ready for independent application. The Reinforcement version is for students who need additional vocabulary or concept support. Three of the six options are swapped for projects with a tighter vocabulary tie-in, and "design your own" is replaced with "collaborate with the teacher" so kids aren't pitching cold.

✅ Evaluate

The Evaluate phase wraps the unit with a formal assessment. It's not all bubble-in. Several questions hand students a set of energy scenario images and ask them to identify which energy form is present and then justify the choice.

The full assessment has 12 questions across five formats:

• Multiple choice (4 questions) covering definitions, factors that affect PE and KE, and examples of each energy form
• Hotspot / visual (2 questions) where students circle the object with more PE or KE in a paired diagram and describe why
• Multiselect (2 questions) where students pick all forms of energy present in a single scenario
• Short answer (2 questions) comparing and contrasting potential and kinetic energy in their own words
• Multipart scenario (2 questions) with a roller coaster diagram where students label PE and KE at five points and explain how the energy shifts across the ride

A modified version is included for students who need additional support. Fewer multiple-choice distractors, sentence-starter scaffolds on the short-answer items.

If you've taught all five phases, this assessment shouldn't surprise anyone. It's a chance for kids to show you they get it.