Week 2: Ramps and Steepness

Children discuss experiences with playground slides, then learn the fingerplay “The Slide.” They discuss how the force of gravity makes things move down the slide.

Children set the steepness of two ramps and send two identical coconuts down the ramps, comparing the distance they roll. They share ideas about why one coconut rolled farther than the other, or why both coconuts rolled the same distance.

Children compare the distance two identical objects travel when they roll down a steep and a gentle ramp. They use the Steep & Gentle Ramps tool in their digital Ramps Journal to make predictions and document and analyze their results.

Children roll paint-covered marbles in a paper-lined box lid or tray.

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.

Children send two objects down a single ramp to find out which one rolls faster. They predict what will happen if they increase the steepness of the ramp. Will the same object still be faster?

The class observes how the children in this video build ramps from everyday objects and race objects down the ramps.

Children reexamine the Results chart of their Steep & Gentle Ramps experiments and draw some conclusions: Which ramp made the objects go farther—the steep ramp or the gentle ramp?

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.