Speed, Motion, and Energy: Designing Runaway Truck Ramps
Shared by A STEM Educator
Students will be able to describe how the height of a ramp affects the speed and distance traveled by a moving object, and explain that stored (potential) energy converts to motion (kinetic) energy — not that speed creates energy from nothing.
Lesson Overview
Students investigate how ramp height and incline affect the speed and energy of a moving object, connecting potential and kinetic energy to the real-world engineering of runaway truck ramps on mountain highways.
Materials
- Toy car or marble (1 per group)
- Foam board or cardboard ramp (1 per group)
- Books or blocks to prop ramp at 3 heights
- Meter stick or measuring tape
- Masking tape (for start/finish lines)
- Foam block (target — represents the truck ramp barrier)
- Stopwatch or timer (optional)
- Graph paper or printed data table
- Pencils and rulers
- Printed warm-up image cards (marble on shallow vs. steep ramp)
- Protractor (for ceiling task)
Scaffolded Task Progression
[ Interactive graph / diagram — available in the full lesson ]
Which marble will be moving faster when it reaches the bottom? Which will travel farther on the flat ground? Write your prediction and one reason.
| Ramp Height | Distance Car Traveled (cm) | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Low | ||
| Medium | ||
| High |
What pattern do you notice? Write one sentence describing the relationship between ramp height and distance traveled.
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