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ACCIDENT CHALLENGE

Learning Set 1

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What variables affect the collision distance?
The increasing number of dangerous accidents is a serious concern for all citizens of McFarland. In an attempt to understand why some accidents are so dangerous the city decided to look at whether vehicles were speeding. If the dangerous accidents are all from trucks that are speeding, then the McFarland police could focus on enforcing the speed limit. The police set up remote speed monitoring equipment and found that the majority of drivers were travelling the speed limit. Despite driving the speed limit, some trucks were still involved in severe/dangerous accidents.

The citizens of McFarland have suggested various reasons why some accidents might be more dangerous than others. Some have argued that the posted speed limit (40 mph) is too high. In other words, if drivers are driving the speed limit and still getting in severe accidents, then the current speed limit is too high. Other citizens have focused on the type of the truck driving on Park St. Some of the trucks driving to and from the factory are empty (because they have just made a delivery) and some are filled (because they have just picked up a shipment). Some citizens have argued that either the empty or the loaded trucks might be more likely to be in a dangerous accident.

The citizens are bringing their ideas to the city council. The city council wants to use these ideas to write proposals that could reduce the number of severe/dangerous accidents. One problem is that the citizens ideas are only guesses; they have no dat a to support their claims about the factors causing the severe accidents. The city council wants to write proposals based on data, so that they have evidence that the proposals might work.

Therefore the city council would like data that suggests which factors might be contributing to the dangerous accidents. If the posted speed limit were reduced, would there be less severe accidents? Two slower speed limits have been proposed: 20 mph and 30 mph. Would this matter? Which speed limit should be used? Is the type of truck an issue? Are empty or loaded trucks more likely to be in a dangerous accident?

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You will continue to use your model of collisions. This time you will conduct an experiment to determine what effects the speed of the truck and the type of truck have on the severity of the accident. This evidence will be used by the city council to decide which proposals would likely reduce the severity of accidents at the intersection.

1.6: Part 1 of 5 Organize the Challenge

Before starting the investigation you need to design a new procedure. You will need a new procedure because you have new information that is relevant to the challenge. To begin thinking about changes to the procedure we will conduct a poll.

As a group, discuss the questions on the Poll Questions Sheet. Then, as a group, decide the best answer to each question. Mark your answer on the Poll Questions Sheet. When your group has answered all the questions, choose one person to report your answers to the class.

GROUP

Complete the Poll Questions Sheet with your group. When your teacher is ready, share your answers with the class.

All groups will report their answers to the poll questions. As other groups are reporting their answers, write down their answers on the Poll Results Sheet. When every group has reported their data the class can look at the Poll Results Sheet and discuss whether all groups agree, or why groups might disagree.

STUDENT

Record each groups answers on the Poll Results Sheet.

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Use a Think, Pair, Share to answer the following questions about the last procedure you developed (the procedure in 1.4). What changes would you need to make to your groups procedure in order to test different speeds? What changes would you need to make to your groups procedure in order to test different truck types? Answer these questions yourself, and then pair and discuss your ideas with a partner. Your teacher will then ask some groups to share their answers. As groups share ideas about the procedural changes, your teacher will help the class identify how to change the class procedure.

CLASS

Use a Think, Pair, Share to discuss what changes to your procedure will be needed.

As a class, you will decide how to change the procedure to test these factors. Additionally, your teacher will assign groups to the different conditions that need to be tested.

1.6: Part 2 of 5 Explore

In the last section your class decided how the procedure could be changed so that you could test trucks traveling at different speeds and trucks with different masses. Therefore, you now need to plan (and record) your new procedure. Use the Procedure Design Sheet to write your new procedure. Be sure to include the important details for your tests. (Remember, your group will test only two conditions. Your teacher should have assigned your group which two conditions to test.) Complete the Procedure Design Sheet to record your procedure and the details for your two tests.

GROUP

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After you have planned your procedure, complete your investigation. For each condition your group tests, conduct 10 test trials. Record your data on the Data Recording Sheet. Once your group has collected all the data, calculate the average for each condition. Run your two investigations following the class procedure. Record your results on the Data Recording Sheet.

STUDENT

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1.6 Part 3 of 5 Add to Your Understanding
You just conducted an experiment in your laboratory. Experiments can differ widely in what they look like, but they generally have at least one independent variable and one dependent variable. Additionally, experiments have many controlled variables.

An independent variable is a variable that the experimenter systematically changes during the experiment. For instance, an experimenter might vary the amount of water that a plant gets, in order to see how different amounts of water affect the length of roots that a plant grows.

A dependent variable, on the other hand, is a variable that the experimenter measures during the experiment. Often, the independent variable is predicted to affect the dependent variable. For instance, the experimenter might think that amount of water (independent variable) will affect plant root length (dependent variable). In this case, the dependent variable (root length) depends on the amount of the independent variable (water).

Likewise, you might hear people refer to a controlled variable. A controlled variable is a variable that the experimenter holds constant. In other words, the experimenter keeps the variable from changing. For instance, suppose the earlier experiment about plant root growth was being conducted with five potato plants. The type of soil that the plants are growing in might also affect root length. Because the experimenter is only interested in the effect of water on root growth, he or she would need to be careful not to use different types of soil. Instead, each of the five potato plants would need to get the same type of soil. In this example, soil type is a controlled variable. Controlled variables are used to keep a procedure consistent.

1.6: Part 4 of 5 Share

Sharing procedures and data is important for scientists and engineers because it allows collaboration. Other scientists and engineers can use each others work and data to understand a problem better. This is especially important when the problem is complex. For instance, you only tested one speed. Other groups tested a different speed. Even though you

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did not test it yourself, you can use their data to understand how mass affects distance traveled at different speeds.

Just seeing data alone is problematic. Remember how many problems you had getting consistent data during early versions of your procedure? To evaluate someone elses data, you often want to know the procedures they used to generate that data. This way you can understand better how they collected their data.

Communicating procedures and data is important for scientists and engineers. You will practice communicating your procedure and data now. We will use a poster session to report your procedure and data using a poster as a visual aid. After your group creates your poster the class will share their posters with each other.

When making your poster consider your audience. What information do they need to know in order to understand your experiment? When making your poster, include the following sections: 1. Question: What question were you testing? (What independent variable were you changing?) 2. Prediction: What did you expect the result to be? (How did you expect the dependent variable to change when the independent variable changed?) 3. Data: Paste your table of data onto your poster 4. Results: What is the trend or results that you found?

GROUP

As a group, plan out and then make your poster. Be sure to include all four sections.

After you have created your poster your group will display it in the classroom. Groups can walk around and view other groups posters. Your teacher will select a few groups to present their poster to the class.

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Poster Session. Display your poster in the classroom and view other groups posters. You can ask them questions about their procedure and data. A few groups will present their posters to the class.

GROUP

Poster Session
A poster session is an event that helps scientists and engineers communicate their work to others in their profession.

There are different types of poster sessions, but all involve a visual aid (a poster) that contains important information about a problem and the methods and results of the scientists/engineers investigation of the problem.

Image courtesy: Science Education Research Center. http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/earlycareer2010/program.html

A poster session is a social event, with some people presenting posters and other people walking around and talking with those presenters. The authors of the poster will use the poster to help explain what he or she was doing, and to answer questions asked by the audience. By communicating their work, poster sessions help scientists collaborate they help others learn what has been done and what still needs to be done to solve a problem.

1.6: Part 5 of 5 Add to Your Understanding

You saw other groups data in the poster session. What would happen if you collected the data from all the groups in your class? Remember that some other groups tested different speeds than your group did. If you collect and graph the data for the entire class you might see trends about how the speed of Vehicle A affects the distance that Vehicle B travels and how the mass of Vehicle A affects the distance that Vehicle B travels. In a sense, all the groups would be

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collaborating together in order to understand how two factors (mass and speed) affect the distance that Vehicle B travels after a collision. Your teacher will help you collect and graph the class data.

STUDENT

Report your two test condition means to your teacher. Record each groups means on your Class Data Table Sheet.

Now that you have collected the class data, you can create graphs to look at the data for all six of the tests that the class conducted. Your teacher will use the data in the Class Data Table Sheet to draw graphs on the Class Line Graph Sheet. You should follow along and draw the line graphs on your copy of the Class Line Graph Sheet. Creating the graphs will give you a visual representation of the trend of your data. It might help you understand the effect of varying the mass and speed of Vehicle A.

STUDENT

Draw two line graphs on the Class Line Graph Sheet. One line graph is for the empty truck and one line graph is for the loaded truck.

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Graphing: Line Graphs
A line graph is a type of graph that connects data points with a line. Line graphs are often used to show a trend how data changes along some ordered dimension.
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For instance, suppose you wanted to see how the number of sent text messages changes over each weekday. You could calculate the mean number of text messages sent on Monday, the mean number sent on Tuesday, etc. A hypothetical graph of these data is on the right. Each weekday is on the Xaxis and Mean number of text messages is on the Y-axis. Does the mean number of text messages increase, decrease, or stay the same from Wednesday through Friday? On which day were the fewest text messages sent?

Mean number of text messages

Weekdays

Now that you have the line graphs drawn, you should be able to interpret the data displayed in the graphs. Your teacher will guide the class, helping you understand and interpret the data. Consider these two questions. For the loaded trucks, does speed increase the distance Vehicle B traveled? For the empty trucks, does speed increase the distance Vehicle B traveled?

CLASS

Interpret the line graphs and answer the above questions.