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![]() Adaptation for older students: High school physics students will enjoy this contest and should be encouraged to analyze the energy transitions in greater depth. Challenge your physics students to make the following calculations. Then display student answers next to the appropriate areas on their roller coasters.
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![]() The trip to school on the bus is not supposed to be as thrilling as a ride on a roller coaster, but in many ways you experience the same energy transitions at a slower rate. Starting from home, and in chronological order, describe what is happening to the bus as you experience an increase in gravitational potential energy (GPE), an increase in kinetic energy (KE), a transformation from GPE to KE or vice versa, and any transformations from the total mechanical energy (GPE + KE) into heat. |
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![]() Riding on the Gravity Express Amusement park rides, water park rides, and rides in the local playground provide thrills while gravitational potential energy (GPE) and kinetic energy (KE) transform from one to the other. Make a list of such rides and explain where in the ride the GPE and the KE are the greatest. Where do the forces act in each ride providing the resistance that converts the total GPE and KE into heat? The Thrill Factor On rides such as roller coasters (and even swings), where the rider experiences fast changes in velocity due to increases or decreases in speed or simply changes in direction, the rider is subjected to unbalanced forces that give the rider an illusion of feeling heavier or lighter than normal. Through our sensing of these unbalanced forces, we judge the "thrill factor" of a ride to be high when they occur frequently in a ride. Some of the best rides give us the illusion of weightlessness for short periods of time. Where on the roller coaster would you expect to feel heavier, and where would you feel lighter? Use Newton's law of inertia to explain these illusions of heaviness and lightness, also known as positive and negative "g forces." Students can design and conduct experiments and demonstrations to back up their explanations. |
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![]() Roller Coasters, or, I Had So Much Fun I Almost Puked Nick Cook. Carolrhoda Books, 1998. It's all here -- the history of coasters, the physics that make them work, different types of roller coasters, and how they are designed and constructed. There are great pictures, easy-to-understand explanations, and even a section on tips for a scarier ride. Roller Coasters Mike Schafer and Scott Rutherford. MBI Publishing, 1998. This book includes a history of roller coasters and sidebars explaining how they work, but primarily gives region-by-region information on the best coasters in the United States. Included are the location, length, age, and features of each. The authors also provide an unofficial top-twenty ranking of the best-of-the-best. |
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![]() Roller Coaster Physics - The Book Tony Wayne tells us everything there is to know about the physics of energy transitions while experiencing the ups and downs on your favorite roller coaster ride. Amusement Park Physics: Roller Coaster Read about the principles for designing roller coasters and then immediately apply this knowledge by designing and testing your own online roller coaster. Inventing the Scream Machine When were they invented? How have they changed? Who are the heroes of the roller coaster industry? Starting in the 18th Century, follow the historical evolution of the modern roller coaster on this clickable and informative roller coaster history timeline |
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![]() Click on any of the vocabulary words below to hear them pronounced and used in a sentence.
Context: The principle of conservation of energy states that as potential energy transforms into kinetic energy (and vice versa), the total energy should remain constant at all times and in all places on the roller coaster.
Context: Due to frictional interactions between the roller coaster car and the track, the mechanical energy is lost and transformed into heat.
Context: All the energy needed to run a roller coaster to the end of the track comes from the gravitational potential energy that it has when lifted to the top of the first and highest hill.
Context: As the mechanical energy of a system such as a roller coaster is transformed into heat, we can expect that the temperature of that system and the environment in which it exists will rise somewhat.
Context: As the roller coaster glides down each hill, the gravitational potential energy is converted into kinetic energy and you and the car go faster and faster.
Context: The two forms of mechanical energy that are relevant to the understanding of how a roller coaster works are gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy. |
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![]() This lesson plan may be used to address the academic standards listed below. These standards are drawn from Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education: 2nd Edition and have been provided courtesy of theMid-continent Research for Education and Learningin Aurora, Colorado. Grade level: 6-8 Subject area: Physical science Standard: Understands energy types, sources, and conversions, and their relationship to heat and temperature. Benchmarks: Knows that energy is a property of many substances (e.g., heat energy is in the disorderly motion of molecules and in radiation; chemical energy is in the arrangement of atoms; mechanical energy is in moving bodies or in elastically distorted shapes; electrical energy is in the attraction or repulsion between charges). Grade level: 6-8 Subject area: Physical science Standard: Understands energy types, sources, and conversions, and their relationship to heat and temperature. Benchmarks: Understands that energy cannot be created or destroyed but only changed from one form to another. Grade level: 9-12 Subject area: Physical science Standard: Understands energy types, sources, and conversions, and their relationship to heat and temperature. Benchmarks: Knows that all energy can be considered to be either kinetic energy (energy of motion), potential energy (depends on relative position), or energy contained by a field (electromagnetic waves). Grade level: 6-8 Subject area: Technology Standard: Understands the nature of technological design. Benchmarks: Designs a solution or product, taking into account needs and constraints (e.g., cost, time, trade-offs, properties of materials, safety, aesthetics). Grade level: 9-12 Subject area: Technology Standard: Understands the nature of technological design. Benchmarks: Evaluates a designed solution and its consequences based on the needs or criteria the solution was designed to meet. |
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![]() Ted Latham, physics and science/technology teacher, Watchung Hills Regional High School, Warren, New Jersey. |
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