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Hi Everyone,

I have been working on a unit plan for a third grade classroom on the topic of friction and motion.  In lesson one the students are understanding what friction is, where friction is present in the world around them, and what are the causes and effects of friction.  Within the first portion of this unit the students are being asked to engage with friction in a hands on experiment. The experiment done is a discrepant event intended to help correct student misconceptions and better understand friction as a concept.  

In the next part of the unit, the students dive into the concept of how friction influences the motion of objects.  The lesson begins with the students considering the interaction of friction with the commit and toss probe. In this probe the students understand how the difference surfaces that objects rub up against influences the motion of an object.  

For my final friction and motion lesson I would like to include a STEM activity for this topic.  Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Have a great day everyone.  I want to encourage the students to build/create their own understanding or experiment for friction.

Kendyl, I've also been struggling of ways to incorporate STEM in my lesson plan. I found the best way to do this is to incorporate a type of hands-on experiment in which the students get to create a portion of their experiment. In regards to your topic of friction and motion I found this experiment where the students create ramps out of different materials and race toy cars down the ramps and they see how the different materials affect how fast or slow the cars go down the ramp. Hope this helps give you ideas!

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Hi Kendyl, Here are some cool ideas that I found online. I hope they are helpful! https://www.pinterest.com/pin/468585536205653686/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/157696424435474512/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/285556432602008342/