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Inquiring into Motion

Middle school students love to complete hands-on activities, like building fan cars, allowing them to develop a personal connection to the activity. That is why this project is excellent for studying "motion." This is a hands-on inquiry-based project using toys to investigate a science concept. Science is hard for many students as they lose interest after leaving elementary school for middle school. The hard is derived primarily by many teaching techniques designed to "prepare them for high school." Students take notes, memorize facts, complete canned labs, and develop little understanding of physics or any other middle school science subject. This project will rekindle their interest in science and move science away from hard.

The National Science Education Standards stress the need for conducting experiments that require students to think. When students think, they increase their level of understanding and develop critical thinking skills. That is the focus of this class project, students actively and mentally engaged investigating "motion" using "fan cars." The project requires students to design their own experiment, sometimes called experimental design, using the scientific inquiry process:

ask questions;
design an investigation;
investigate;
formulate an explanation;
present findings;
reflect on results by drawing conclusions based on collected evidence.

One important thing that students discover using the scientific inquiry process is there is more than one correct answer. Because students discover their findings may differ with others, due to the design of their investigation. This difficulty is eventually overcome after completing several investigations that involve the scientific inquiry process. An additional attribute, a student now thinks critically and completes investigations like a scientist. This investigative process helps students resolve misconceptions tightly held because of prior knowledge and experience. This project helps eliminate some of these misconceptions, further opportunities and experiences are needed to eliminate all of them. Some misconceptions students view about "motion" and related concept "force" include:

The only "natural" motion is for an object to be at rest.
An object's motion is proportional to the force applied.
If an object is at rest, no forces are acting on the object.
Only animate objects can exert a force. Thus, if an object is at rest on a table, no
forces are acting upon it.
Force is a property

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