Students use toy cars to learn about "push and pull forces"

East Campus fifth-graders recently used toy cars to learn about force, motion and energy.

The task was for students to estimate how far they think toy cars will travel when they pull them back a set distance before releasing. Teacher Ilesia Wyatt’s students took their assignment to the playground, broke into groups, made their predictions and recorded the results on a “push and pull” data sheet.

The students were tasked with recording the data for this investigation in centimeters and making their predictions before they applied the force to the car. From there, they discussed the relationship between the distance the car was pulled back and the distance it traveled forward. They talked about why there may be inconsistencies among the group data.

“The students got an experience in decision making, problem solving and sharing ideas,” Mrs. Wyatt said. They also learned to listen, engage in healthy criticism, motivate and compromise when necessary. “This is how they enhance their learning,” she said.

Scientists say that studying forces and motion helps students understand the world around them and explore how things interact with each other. In explaining the exercise, Mrs. Wyatt quoted a Chinese Proverb: “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

The following is how two students described their experiments:

By Admari Rios:
“On Thursday, October 4th, my class and I did an experiment on how far a pull back or push car would travel when it was placed at the starting point at 2 cm, 4 cm, 6 cm and 8 cm.

“My group and I noticed that when the car was placed closer to the starting point, it didn’t go as far as when it was placed further from the starting point. We also noticed that when we pushed the car, we were in control of how far it went based on how much force we used to push the car. When the car was pulled, we were not in control of the amount of force.

“After this experiment, I think I can speak on behalf of the entire class. We LOVED IT. My teacher, Mrs. Wyatt, is Number 1. I had an awesome time learning about pushes, pulls and forces.”

“On Thursday, October 4th, my class and I did an experiment on how to measure how far a car will travel when pulled back (controlled force) or pushed forward (by force).

“At first my group thought that when we pulled the car and released it, the car would go farther. But then we noticed that when we pushed the car, it went farther. This happened because when we pulled the car it had its own force, but when we pushed the car, we had the control of the force.

“Each group had to create a bar graph using the data sheet to graph the distance displaying the pull back cars traveled and the distance of the push cars. The class had a fantastic time learning about Push and Pull, especially me!”

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Bottom photo: Students Jacqueline Saucedo (left) and Admari Rios