Strategies, successes and resources for “Explore” stage

[admin]

In the For You To Do, students are meant to “Explore” the phenomena of the activity, making careful observations and drawing some conclusions about what is at work. What successes did you have in facilitating this? Did you develop or locate any resources you would like to share with other teachers?

[Tracy Greeley-Adams]

Butcher paper on the wall for the rolling chair is a great strategy.  Also having post-it notes for the students really helps especially with the few practice runs needed in order to get the students to really see where the ball is and not where they "think" it was.  This helps so that you can use the same butcher paper for all classes and use different colors for each class so the next day they can see the end project for all of the classes.  My students would really have a hard time seeing that the ball is going to be at the same point as the chair. 

[Dolores Keeley]

In addition to using butcher paper, push the chair in front of a door frame.

[Fred Meshna]

Using a manufactured apparatus that drops a steel ball at the same time that another ball is kicked horizonatally from the same height really shows the student that vertical acceleration is independent of the horizontal motion.  The apparatus can is only about $15 in any science supply catalogue.