Physics Students Excited about Energy

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It isn’t often that a teacher tries to make things harder for her students, but that is exactly what eighth-grade physics teacher Kimberly Morgan has done. For the fourth year, her students have taken what they have learned about energy and transformed the information into “Energy Conversion Contraptions” using items such as balloons, hammers and marbles, along with lots of creativity.

The students started with a few guidelines from Mrs. Morgan. They were required to convert three forms of potential energy into kinetic energy; at least five objects in the contraption needed to pick up kinetic energy; and heat, sound and light were required to be included (fire was not allowed this year following its popularity with last year’s class).

The students worked in class, first sketching a diagram of how the contraptions would work, and then moving to the building and testing stage. The final step was to present their contraptions to the class and hope that everything moved according to plan.

All in all, it was a great success, with another group of eighth-grade students having a terrific time when their teacher makes them work a little harder.