Roller Coaster

This week was Engineering Week, so I wanted to do something fun to tie engineering into the library.  What I came up with was roller coasters. (Actually, I didn’t come up with this idea. Another librarian did.)  I read the book Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee and then discussed some vocabulary terms such as acceleration, speed, velocity, gravity, friction, potential energy and kinetic energy before the students made their own roller coasters.

The students used pipe insulation that had been cut in half length wise as the roller coaster and large marbles to test them. They had to create one with 1 hill, 2 hills and 1 loop. They got so excited when the marble would complete the run, especially with the loop. After testing their roller coasters, we discussed as a group some of the observations they made while completing this task. They did a great job of realizing that the higher they started their track, the greater the force of gravity and more speed their marble would have. They also talked about friction and how it played a part in their marble not wanting to roll. Here are a few examples of what they created.

This week was a fun week. The students really enjoyed this lesson and I believed they learned a lot. I also think this lesson was the students’ favorite so far this year!