Middle School Inquiry Lab on Potential Energy and Height
In this lab students will change the distance (height) a car travels to increase its potential energy.
Each inquiry lab will contain an essential question that will drive the lesson and make students think. For this lesson, the essential question is:
- How can changing the distance (height) an object travels change the potential energy of an object?
BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND MATERIALS LIST:
Students will begin the lab by reading the essential question and background information. This can be done individually, as lab groups, or as a whole class. If you consider lab groups, you also might include some type of whole class formative checks before digging into the lab.
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Materials List:
- toy car
- car tracks
- scale (in grams)
- 3 same sized blocks or books to create a 2-meter-long ramp
- stopwatch
PROCEDURE:
In this lab, students will be using books, tracks, and a toy car. First, students will have to take the mass of the car and record it on their data table. Next, the students will construct a ramp using the track and either blocks or books. Students will use one book/block to begin and time how long it takes for the car to reach the end of the track as they release the car. Students will continue this process two more times, each time raising the ramp by another book/block.
When all three trials are complete, students will have to calculate the potential energy for each trial, using the correct formula. Students will calculate their answers in Joules and graph their findings using a bar graph.
CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING:
At this point in the lab, students will be checked for understanding by answering questions about their findings. Here are a few that come with the lab:
- What is the independent variable (the one you changed)?
- What is the dependent variable (the one that reacts to your changes)?
- What pattern do you see in the graph of potential energy?
CONCLUSION
Students will go back to the essential question and write a CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) to conclude the lab. Once completed, students will reflect back on their learning by answering the following questions:
- What is another way you could change the potential energy of an object without changing its height? Why?
- Would an object on Mars have more or less potential energy than the same object at the same height on Earth? Why?
MODIFIED AND INDEPENDENT INQUIRY VERSIONS
All of the Kesler Science inquiry labs come with three different modification levels. Each lab is differentiated using the icons below.
STANDARDS ALIGNMENT
NGSS: MS-PS3-2 – Develop a model to describe that when the arrangement of objects interacting at a distance changes, different amounts of potential energy are stored in the system.
