Anthony Locicero

Teacher Work Sample

1/13/16
General Information
Lesson Title: Friction and Motion Lab
Unit of Study: Force and Motion
Grade: 3
Instructional Setting: 16 third grade students in a general education classroom.
Students have individual desks which face a Smart board and a white board. The room
includes a carpeted meeting area where the experiment will be conducted.
Standards and Objectives
District Core Curriculum Standards:
Lamoille North Science Standard 2.3, Benchmark 2:
Students will know that friction is a force that often opposes motion.
Lamoille North Science Standard 2.3, Benchmark 5:
Students will be able to predict, compare, and contrast the effects of different surfaces
on the movement of an object (friction).
Lesson Goals:
Students will use toy cars, ramps, and surfaces with different amounts of friction to
investigate the effect of friction on the motion of a toy car.
Students will record data and draw a conclusion stating which surfaces have the most
and least friction based on the distance the toy car travels on these surfaces.
Lesson Objectives:
Given a toy car, ramp, and strips of carpet, artificial turf, and sandpaper, students will
use measuring tape to measure the distance the car rolls on each surface, recording
their measurements in a table in three of three trials.
Given the data recorded on their data tables, students will identify in writing the surface
on which the toy car rolled farthest as having the least friction and the surface on which
the toy car rolled the shortest distance as having the most friction, scoring at least 2 of 4
points on the lesson rubric.
Materials and Resources
Instructional Materials:

-Eight wooden ramps, each 24 inches long

-Eight die-cast metal toy cars
-Eight metric tape measures
-Eight 3 foot by 1 foot strips of artificial turf
-Eight 3 foot by 1 foot strips of 100-grit sandpaper
-Carpeted area (at least 8 by 12 feet)
-Smart Board projector
-Science Notebooks for each student
Resources:
Source for District science standards:
http://lnsu.cloudaccess.net/index.php/cia/science
Instructional Plan
Student Prerequisite Skills Needed for Lesson:
Students will need to understand the relationship between friction and motion; namely,
that as the friction of a surface increases, the motion of a rolling object on a surface
decreases. Students will also need to know to use a measuring tape.
Presentation of New Information or Modeling: 15 minutes
Gather the students on the carpeted meeting area of the classroom. Explain that
for the days science lesson students will investigate friction using toy cars, ramps, and
surfaces with different friction values. Remind students how they have learned about
friction and how surfaces with high friction cause objects in motion to travel a shorter
distance than surfaces with lower friction.
Explain the days experiment. Students will use a toy car and a ramp of a fixed
height to test the friction of surfaces by rolling the car down the ramp and onto each of
the surfaces, then measure the distance the car travels on each surface. Show students
the different materials that they will be using. Pass around samples of the artificial turf
and sandpaper, and tell students that the classroom carpet will be the third surface they
will test.
Model the procedure of the experiment. Let the car roll from the top of the ramp
onto the carpet. Instruct students to measure the distance in centimeters from where the
ramp contacts the floor to the back of the car. Bring up a data table on the class
computer using the Smart Board projector.

Surface
Carpet
Sandpaper
Artificial Turf

Trial 1

Trial 2

Trial 3

Write in the measured distance using the Smart Board writer under carpet, trial
1. Next, explain that as scientists, it is important to test each condition in your
experiment more than once to make sure your data is accurate. Repeat the process
twice and write the distance in centimeters for the remaining two trials.
Ask students to identify the largest distance of the three trials. Cross it out on the
Smart Board display. Ask them to identify the shortest distance of the trials and cross it
out on the Smart Board display. Circle the remaining distance and tell students that this
middle value will be the one that students will keep.
Explain to the students that after they have completed the trials for one surface,
they will test the other two surfaces by placing the material where the ramp contacts the
floor. Remind students to complete three trials for the other surfaces and to record their
results in their data tables.
Guided Practice: 15 minutes
Dismiss students to their seats and ask them to write a hypothesis in their
science notebooks on which surface will allow the toy car to roll the furthest and which
will allow the car to roll the shortest distance.
Instruct them to create a blank data table like the one on the Smart Board. As
students finish making their data table, assign partners for each student in the class.
Give each group their materials. As students begin their trials, remind students that they
should only let the toy car roll down the ramp and to measure the distance traveled from
the end of the ramp to the back of the car in order to get accurate results.
Observe students as they complete their experiment trials. If students are not
conducting the experiment as instructed, correct them by re-explaining what they need
to do and observing them.
As students finish their trials, verify that students have selected the middle of
their three distance measurements for each surface.
Independent Student Practice: 10 minutes
Have students return to their seats. Use the Smart Board Projector to display the
experiments conclusion questions: Which surface has the most friction? Which surface
has the least friction? How do you know?
Tell students to write their responses and use their data as evidence to prove
their claims. Give the students ten minutes to complete their responses. Assist students
with learning exceptionalities with structuring and writing their responses as needed.
Closing Activity: 5 minutes
When students have finished their responses, call them to bring their science
notebooks with them to the carpeted meeting area. Poll the students on their

hypotheses. Ask students to raise their hands if they believed the carpet, sandpaper, or
turf would allow the car to roll farthest.
Call on students to share their conclusions with the group. Review the concept
of friction in relation to motion with the students. Explain that the surface that allowed
the car to travel farthest had the least friction, and the one that allowed the car to travel
the shortest distance had the most friction.
Collect the science notebooks for assessment.
Pedagogical Strategy
Active learning, partner work, direct instruction.
Differentiated Instruction
There are two students who present a learning disability in written expression.
These students will be assisted by the classroom teacher and a paraeducator who will
provide sentence starters for these students to assist them in structuring their written
responses. One student presents a learning disability in reading comprehension. There
are no written directions, but the lesson requires students to copy the format of the data
table, so the classroom teacher will check in with this student to verify that the student
understands the meanings of the words in the data table.
Student Assessments
For my first lesson objective, I will assess student performance through
examination of each students data table to verify whether a student has filled out all
parts of their data table.
For the second lesson objective I will review the students written response to the
question and and fill out the rubric below.
0: Does not meet
standard

1: Meets standard

2: Exceeds
standard

Low friction
surface: Which
surface has the
lowest friction?
How do you know?

Response is
missing,
incomplete, or
incorrectly identifies
the lowest-friction
surface

Student identifies a
surface as having
the lowest friction
because it allows
the car to roll
farthest.

Student identifies a
surface as having
the lowest friction
because it allows
the car to roll
farthest AND cites
data from the
experiment as
evidence.

High friction
surface: Which
surface has the

Response is
missing,
incomplete, or

Student identifies a
surface as having
the highest friction

Student identifies a
surface as having
the highest friction

highest friction?
How do you know?

incorrectly identifies because it allows

the highest-friction the car to roll the
surface
shortest distance.

because it allows
the car to roll
shortest distance
AND cites data
from the
experiment as
evidence.