"How do you learn about motion?"

"How do you learn about motion?"

That was the question a couple of the kids asked me today after seeing motion listed among our things to discuss and explore.

"We already know that stuff," Reese assured me. He then began jogging across the room. "See! I can make motion."

It's a fair question and one that I batted around a bit over the break. The State of South Carolina has some very specific things they want the kids to know. I see these in the form of State Curriculum Standards. We don't use textbooks much here at CFI but we do reference this set of specific skills and topics the state mandates. In this case the standards said I should teach the kids to:

1. Identify the position of an object relative to a reference point by using position terms such as "above," "below," "inside of," "underneath," or "on top of" and a distance scale or measurement.

2. Compare the motion of common objects in terms of speed and direction.

3. Explain how the motion of an object is affected by the strength of a push or pull and the mass of the object.

4. Explain the relationship of the motion of an object and the pull of gravity.

So how DO you teach or learn about motion?

We started by throwing some things through the air and listing what we noticed. I threw a round ball, a football, a piece of paper, a paper scrap, a marker, and an eraser. "What'd you notice?" I asked.

"The scrap of paper is a lot worse at going places than like a ball," Jillian offered.
"The football and round ball rolled and bounced after they hit the ground," Madison said.
"The paper had to be rolled into a ball to move much," Jenna shared.
"The ball went the furthest because it's a sphere," Daniel guessed.
"Mr. Hass kept trying to put force into the scrap of paper but it was too light to go very far," Madison hypothesized.

The kids moved out into groups where they started lists of the observations they can make about the motion of objects ("Cars need gas and a motor to give them force or power to move and we need food," one group wrote). They also made another list of hypotheses about motion ("Things need power to make them move - either from gas or food or something," the same group said).

A little while later we packed up our sheets so that we could continue this work tomorrow. I then gave each of the kids a piece of computer paper and a challenge: Design something that will allow your piece of paper to travel further than anyone else's. The kids had already figured out that objects need force to make them move. They also were thinking that an object's shape, material, and weight might have some effect on motion. For this challenge we were keeping material (paper) and weight the same for everyone. However, we were each changing the shape based on our own designs.

We took these outside and practiced throwing them. Many of the kids decided to make changes. A lot of paper airplanes were quickly crumpled up into balls. Others fashioned gliders, paper footballs, or straws. The balls seemed to travel the furthest. However, Kayla was quick to point out that it wasn't really fair because some people threw better than others. Someone else pointed out that people were throwing with different motions as well (underarmed, overhanded, sidearmed). Yet another person guessed that the wind might have helped some people but not others since we didn't all throw them at the exact same time or from the same spot.

So in the end we decided this wouldn't be a reliable experiment of the effects of shape design on motion. However, we learned all kinds of things about carefully crafting an experiment so that it is reliable. This was where I was hoping our discussion would wind up so I was very pleased to see the kids get there. The kids will begin working on Tuesday to design their own experiments around a hypothesis their group made today. They will take these home and have one week to conduct the experiment and come back prepared to talk about it. We'll discuss as a class what this might look and sound like. It won't be a huge project at all. However, I want to make sure they are prepared to really explain what they did and what they learned from it - either about motion or about designing and conducting experiments.