Energy, Machines, and Motion
Part One: Energy
Lesson 10: Assessing What You Know
The activities in this lesson are designed to assess student’s abilities to perform good lab work and to demonstrate in writing their understanding of the scientific principals of energy, forces, work and power
Focus Question: What energy changes allow a falling body to light a bulb?
3. Lesson Set-up and Management
EALR 2: Inquiry
Core Content: Questioning and Investigating
6-8 INQC Collecting, analyzing, and displaying data are essential aspects of all investigations.
6-8 INCF It is important to distinguish between the results of a particular investigation and general conclusions drawn from these results.
EALR 4: Physical Science
Core Content: Balanced and Unbalanced Forces
6-8 PS1C Unbalanced forces will cause changes in the speed or direction of an object’s motion.
- Students demonstrate how to manipulate equipment, gather and record data.
- Students demonstrate how to interpret data and draw conclusions based on the data.
- Students demonstrate knowledge of energy, forces, work and power.
3. Lesson Set-Up and Management
Materials:
- There are many student and teacher sheets to assess student understanding. Consider having student worksheets one color and teacher sheets a different color.
- Make one class set of Inquiry Master 10.5. Students will respond to these questions on Inquiry Master 10.3. This will allow faster corrections from class to class.
- Inquiry Master 10.2 and 10.4 are rubrics for both groups and students. Consider placing these into student notebooks for quick feedback to students.
Student Management:
- Students will work with a lab partner, or in groups, for their performance assessment. Consider how to have partners work together, yet answer questions so you are getting individual rather than group responses.
- Rubrics provided in the teacher’s edition can be used to focus student responses and serve as a checklist of items to include in their answers.
- Students will work with partners/groups for the Performance
Assessment 10.1 on Day 1. Below are a few tips to make the assessment
run smoother
- Have materials at lab stations ready for students
- Go through Student Sheet 10.1 with students
- In the procedure it has students attach 5 washers to a paper clip wound around the nail. They allow the washers to fall and record their data. Be sure students capture their thinking in the correct spot on the data table.
- Before doing the other tests on different amounts of washers you will want them to write a prediction (Question 2). Consider changing the questions slightly to—what do you think will happen if you have fewer washers and why? What if you have more washers, why do you think this happens?
- When students are asked to calculate the work many students do not convert centimeters to meters. Consider giving them this hint.
- On question number 9 students are asked to write a procedure to
calculate power. Consider changing the questions slightly to elicit a
step in the procedure they have followed to calculate the power.
- On Day 2 of Lesson 10 students will be asked to complete two parts
of the assessment.
- The first part students calculate the averages of data collected by others. Students then graph the results. Have students refer to rubric (Inquiry Master 10.4) for the requirements of this part of the assessment.
- The second part of the assessment is multiple choice and short answer. Make sure students mark on the correct page.
Writing Support:
- Students place the responses to the questions on student masters. Consider having those pasted into a science notebook. This will serve as part of the storyline for students to refer to later in the unit.
Reading Support:
- Cars: Energy To Burn discusses the forces and energy transformation in a gasoline powered vehicle. The reading serves as a good review of the concepts covered in Part 1 of Energy, Machines and Motion.
Math Support:
- N/A