Collisions

[General teacher guide]

The 1D collisions Activity Sequence document can be downloaded from this link.

Related worksheets

An outline of the teacher session plans used in 2004 in London are available here.

Learning snapshots and Pedagogical advice

The pedagogical advice report outlines the activities and gives tips and tricks for teachers running the activities.

General background

Typical school curriculum activities in this domain are based on a mathematical approach and are constrained by specific algebraic skills of the children. The different classes of collisions (perfectly elastic, perfectly inelastic) constitute simple applications of the conservation of momentum law and law of conservation of energy, which are basic concepts of physics. Conservation laws have the broadest possible application of all laws in physics and are thus considered by many scientists to be the most fundamental laws in nature. However, they are currently presented in the educational system in a very didactic manner with the result that students identify them as meaningless algorithms to be implemented when working out a solution to the outcome of a collision.

Our basic aim is to provide students the opportunity to actively build their own knowledge structures while they are involved in a domain that is personally meaningful to them.  Furthermore, we believe that the development of modeling skills provides a setting in which meaning can be usefully constructed by learners. Through collaboration, students will actively engage in a combined inquiry and modeling approach and they will have the opportunity to create, test, refine and validate models in Toontalk about the different observed classes of collisions without applying any mathematical formulae.