Events

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Teaching in Action: K'NEX Science Lessons on Racing Cars

Read below to see how CSUF Faculty supported pre-service teachers in using K'NEX kits to help students construct and race their rubber-band powered cars.

Project Feedback: Cynthia Gautreau

In Dr. Cynthia Gautreau's Fall 2009 EDEL 436 (Curriculum and Instruction in Elementary School Teaching -- Science), pre-service teachers were provided with a K'NEX kit to assemble. They were to reflect on the assembly process and brainstorm ideas for using the K'NEX kits to reinforce science concepts in their future elementary classrooms. The pre-service teachers assembled the kits at home and brought in completed kits. As a class, pre-service teachers brainstormed lesson plan activities to integrate a collaborative and constructivist approach to teaching science and engaging elementary students. During class preservice teachers raced the K'NEX cars, modified the cars, recorded distance and speed to connect the activity to mathematics. A website showcases photos of the K'NEX cars, students, and lesson plan ideas submitted by students. Click here to see the site.

Project Feedback: Melinda Pierson

Dr. Melinda Pierson, Chair of the Department of Special Education, supported student teacher, Jennie Pullen, in an art lesson for sixth grade students enrolled in GATE, general education and special education at Fairmont Elementary School in Yorba Linda. Students first learned about sculptures - materials used, famous sculptures and sculptors, and the history of sculpture in society, before building their own "sculptures" out of the K'NEX kits. Students worked with partners or individually to follow directions and build either Car #1 or Car #2. Overall, the students loved the lesson and enjoyed having a hands-on activity which was practical and followed the art content that they were learning about.

Project Feedback: Maria Grant

Dr. Maria Grant worked with a group of students at a southern California high school as they focused on the accessing content through science literacy. Specifically, students worked to develop a deep understanding of potential and kinetic energy through the construction of rubber band-powered K’NEX cars. The actual construction of the cars using the K’NEX kits required that students use technical and academic language, an area of science literacy focus for this project, to communicate with partners. Additionally, students drew on prior knowledge (related to Newton’s Laws of Motion, velocity, and acceleration) to write about what they had learned through their use of the cars. This project relates to Dr. Grant’s ongoing interest and work in science literacy.

Project Feedback: Ruth Yopp-Edwards

Pre-service teachers in Kim Case's Fall 2009 EDEL 436 (Curriculum and Instruction in Elementary School Teaching -- Science) utilized the K'NEX cars in an after-school science club at Linda Vista Elementary School in the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District as part of their science foundations course. The pre-service teachers were provided with K’NEX car kits, assembled them at home, and conducted open-ended experiments in class to see what factors might affect the speed and distance the cars traveled. They then created a lesson to meet the same objective with the elementary students in the science club. In small groups they conducted the lesson with the children, and as a whole group they discussed the factors that affected speed and distance traveled. Each elementary school student then was provided with a K’NEX car kit to take home and conduct similar experiments with their families.

Click here to see a sample lesson plan by Darlene Vu

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