Week 4: Build Ramps and Pathways

In this video, children build a hill out of a sofa cushion. They try to slide a smooth plastic surfboard and a fuzzy toy bird down their homemade hill. After watching the video, children try a similar experiment in their own classroom.

Children explore using different textured materials to build a pathway that will make a coconut roll onto the star. They choose and test using bumpy grass and less bumpy dirt to see how far the coconut will roll.

Children compare the distance two identical objects travel when they slide down a smooth ramp and a rough ramp. They use the digital Ramps Journal to make predictions and document and analyze results.

Children build steep and gentle ramps from sheets of cardboard. They explore which objects move faster and slower down the ramps.

Children compare the effect of different textured surfaces as they slide and roll objects down the ramps.

Children build ramps and then send small toys or objects down the ramps.

Children explore textured bumpy grass, less bumpy dirt and smooth metal materials to try to move a coconut along a pathway onto the star.

Children try to make a coconut land on a star while exploring how the amount of force, the steepness of a ramp, and the surface texture of the pathway affect how far a coconut will roll.

In this video, children build a hill out of a sofa cushion. They try to slide a smooth plastic surfboard and a fuzzy toy bird down their homemade hill. After watching the video, children try a similar experiment in their own classroom.

In these "challenge" levels, children manipulate initial force, ramp steepness and surface texture in order to make the coconut travel the path and stop at the pre-set star.