An Inventive Science Lesson at Meadow Lake Elementary

At Meadow Lake Elementary, second graders are diving into the world of science.  Teaching a young group of students about motion, force and gravity can be a daunting topic for both teachers and students, but Teacher Jeri Joy has found a way to make this lesson “roll” with students.

After a brief description and a few notes about force, Joy’s class constructs their own roller coasters out of foam. The class is broken into teams, given a marble, foam tubes and plenty of tape to make a roller coaster of their own design. 

James Carothers and Holden Mattoon bend their foam pieces creating what they called “loopty loops” in their roller coaster. After taping a series of foam pieces together, they drop a marble through the creased foam to see if their design works.

“This is fun,” Carothers said. “I’m building a roller coaster and learning about gravity, pretty cool huh?”

This “cool” idea came from a teaching conference Joy recently attended. “I saw this activity and thought it was a great way to teach such a complicated lesson,” she said. 

Student Max Ma said building a roller coaster was a “challenge” but one he learned a valuable lesson from. “I learned if you don’t get things right on the first try, you have to keep to trying.” 

At the end of the activity each group showed their roller coaster to the class. Joy says she will continue to use this lesson in the future.

Check out our photo gallery of the activity.