|
Home
> Resources > Classroom
Practice > Assessment
> NY Assessment Collection
Mineola High School
The Physics Mousetrap Car Project
Context
Regents 20/30% Option
In 1993, Scott McMullen, Director of Mineola's Science Department, and other New York teachers helped to devise the 20/30% Option, a set of guidelines for New York State schools encouraging them to develop
--and replace 20% to 30% of the Regents exam with --alternative assessment projects.
Scott opened up the 20/30% Option idea to any teacher in Mineola's Science Department who was interested. In 1993-94, Mineola's two Physics teachers, Jim Gibson and Scott Spacie, and Eric Knuffke, an Honors Biology teacher, tried the option. For their part, the Physics teachers developed the Mousetrap Car Project and another, shelter-building project on solar energy to take the place of Part II of the Regents exam. The following year, all science teachers at Mineola were encouraged to adopt this approach, and Earth Science, Chemistry, and Biology teachers developed performance-based assessments to replace a portion of the Regents. These alternative components reflect all of the Regents' goals, but require more of students than the multiple-choice exam.
Two Courses: Regents Physics and Technical Physics
The Mousetrap Car Project is done with two groups of students: Regents Physics students whose work on this and the solar energy project replaces Part II of the Regents exam, and Technical Physics 11 students, who do not take the Regents exam but receive Regents credit for the course itself. An entirely non-Regents physics course is no longer offered, in keeping with Mineola's move from tracking and towards heterogeneous classes.
Tech Physics is offered as an alternative to Regents Physics, and often draws students who may never have considered taking Physics at all. It was designed as a two-tiered course to afford students the option of performing at a certain level to receive school credit, or at a higher level to receive Regents credit. In addition to the Mousetrap Car Project, students in Tech Physics complete three other hands-on projects (e.g., building a bridge or creating a shelter). Like the Mousetrap Car Project, these other projects involve student evaluation via an evaluation rubric.
Mousetrap Car Project
The Mousetrap Car Project addresses concepts which are common to the Regents and Tech Physics curricula, including work, force, torque, motion, and Newton's laws. In Regents Physics, Jim Gibson's students study Newton's Laws and motion before the Mousetrap Car Project even starts, and while it is underway continue to study new, related physics concepts.
In Tech Physics, Scott Spacie introduces the Mousetrap Car Project through units on force and torque. As he explains,"We talk about the torque of the spring coming open and the torque of the wheels." In these introductory units, students ask themselves, "What happens when you make the radius [of the wheels]
bigger, what happens to the torque, what happens to the distance traveled?"
Students from both courses work with their classmates in pairs or trios and spend approxÜimately two months on the project. Both teachers devote at least one double period per week for approximately one month to the project, and in this time encourage students to experiment with various approaches to running and making the cars. Classes meet daily, sometimes for single 45 minute periods and sometimes for double periods, for a total of 7.5 hours of class time each week. Some class time is spent on class practice runs of the cars. As Scott Spacie comments, "The thing that gets them going is the competition. They make a car they think is pretty good, then somebody blows their doors off and it's back to the drawing board." The teachers suggest possibilities, but much of the final car designs result from trial-and-error attempts on the part of the students. Some groups make several cars before deciding on a final design.
Students choose to focus on and prepare their cars for particular events. For example, some aim specifically for fast- or long-running cars while others aim to build all-purpose vehicles. To these ends, students are able to explain why they use different-sized wheels (i.e., to go faster or farther), as well as why their cars perform as they do. They demonstrate willingness to take risks and to experiment with different approaches to success.
Competition among students is good-natured, and students compare both their cars and their cars' results from in-class practice runs to the cars and results of their peers.
Mousetrap Car Contest Day
In every corner of and spot on the gym floor, teams of students sit with bags of gear necessary for making last-minute readjustments. Students work with everything from pliers and string to extra wheels and strips of metal. It is their responsibility to go through each "station" and have their scores recorded on an official scoresheet.
[See Appendix for sample photos of the four stations]. The gym is divided into separate areas for the four different stations:
- A wooden slide approximately 6' by 5' is set up for the uphill incline station;
- A computerized mechanism is attached to one of the car's wheels to measure speed;
- The tractor pull consists of a piece of plywood loaded with various weights, which each car must drags across the floor;
- Distance is measured according to how far across a strip of the floor --the middle of the gym from the front door to the back wall --cars can travel when released.
The day of competition falls during mid-term exam week, and the events last about three hours. Schoolwide scores are tallied the following week and winners are announced.
(See the Contest Rules in PROMPT.)
Teachers act as judges and record the numbered cars' scores at each station.
Follow-up Work
Lab exercises related to the Project are done in both Physics courses. For the Regents course, labs are included in the total number of points students receive towards Part II of the Regents exam; for the Tech Physics course, lab exercises count towards students' final course grades.
Regents Physics students give and are graded upon oral presentations of their Mousetrap Car Projects. To learn about what other students are doing, Tech Physics students present to and hear presentations from students in another class, but these do not factor into their final project grades.
Mousetrap Logs and Monitoring Student Progress
Mousetrap logs are kept by students
in both courses throughout the project.
The logs allow students to describe,
(and often vent their frustrations
with), the step-by-step process
used to arrive at a final car design.
Logs include blank forms where students
write brief narrative reports documenting
what occurred during key periods
of the car-building process. These
narratives are supplemented with
diagrams of the car at each stage.
In Regents Physics, the students
hand in their logs at the end of
the project. Mr. Spacie keeps Tech
Physics students' logs in class,
and each time a class period is
devoted to the project, he has co-working
students show him what they have
accomplished on their car that day.
Then, together, they write down
and create a drawing of any improvements
or changes made to the car. (See
PERFORMANCE).
Both Regents and Tech Physics teachers use posters to chart the progress and practice scores of each team. These posters are kept in the classroom so that students can compare themselves to past scores and to other teams. Keeping class records visible helps students stay focused on where they need to be going.
New York Assessment Collection Navigator
Other Dimensions for Mineola High School:
Vision
Context
Prompt
Performance
Evaluation
Reflection
Back to Main Pages
Introduction
Sample
Assessments Menu
List
of Participating Schools
Page last updated: June 17, 2002
|
printer version
