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Project 1: Model Rockets

Project Overview

Project-based learning experiences are frequently organized around a driving question. Too frequently, however, the question that drives a project is not crafted to make connections between activities and the underlying conceptual knowledge that one might hope to foster. Although the opportunity for deep learning is there, it often does not occur because of the tendency in project-based approaches to get caught up in the action without appropriate reflection. In such cases, the "doing" of an activity takes precedent over "doing with understanding".

The opportunities to build and launch rockets have been a continuing "success" story in the area of "hands-on" science education. However, what do students actually learn from these experiences? Research by Anthony Petrosino found that many sixth-grade students who completed the traditional rocket activities learned fairly little from the hands-on activity of simply making and launching their rockets. They did not understand what makes a better or worse rocket, and they did not understand how to evaluate the effectiveness of their rockets in any systemic way. One reason for this may be that students did not have a "driving question" that could foster inquiry.

The research behind this activity explored whether is was possible to deepen the students' understanding without dampening their enthusiasm; could the students learn about experimentation and measurement if they had an appropriate "driving question" behind the model rocket project? To examine this issue, we added a learning-appropriate goal to the standard model rocket project that motivated the use of scientific and statistical methods. You can see this clearly in the "Request for Design Plan" letter below.

The Problem

The Project

Modeling the Process: Searching | Solving | Creating | Sharing

The Problem

More often than not, when model rockets are used in the classroom, we have students build the rockets, launch them, and then watch as the students run to catch the rockets as they fall to the ground. In setting up this activity we have used a Design Letter as an anchoring activity. You will notice that this letter not only calls for the building and launching of a model rocket(s) but also the measuring of it's height, comparison of various design plans, and a final written report. Moreover, the way this problem is set up, students do not compete but rather cooperate as they attempt to figure out the best design attributes for reaching maximum height. The attributes that are compared are 1) nose cone shape, 2) surface smoothness, and number of fins. In this way, students learn about experimentation as well as model rocketry.

Sample Design Letter:

Dear Applicant:

    The aim of this letter is to give you directions for a bid to our project. I am pleased to learn that you and your staff are interested in making rocket design plans. To help you with the making of your design plans, let me tell you how we plan to use the model rockets.
    Our project hopes to use this model rocket activity as a key part of its program in other schools systems around the country. We are very interested in a full account of your rocket design. You will find guidelines that we hope will help you in the making of a packet of information that you will submit at the end of this unit. Our goal here is twofold. First, we would like you to build rockets that will follow a straight path upward. Second, we want you to test three different features of the model rockets in order to prove scientifically which features will lead to the best overall rocket design.
    The ability to carry out a research project is very important. The successful plan will be one that explains how a rocket should be designed so it flies straight while also being able to calculate (and measure) its height.
    We are specifically interested in 3 questions. First, will our rockets go higher if we paint them and sand them or leave them unfinished? While it would be much cheaper for us not to paint and sand our rockets, we do want to maximize the height our rockets reach. Second, will the amount of fins have any effect on the height of the rockets. Primarily, 3 vs. 4 fins? Again, there are economic considerations involved. Third, does the type of nose cone have an effect on the height of the model rocket. We have rounded and pointed cones.
    The packet of information you submit to the Review Board should contain the information and materials in the items listed below. Only complete packets will be considered. We want to hire the team that can design the best rocket plan. But the Review Board must have faith that the designers understand and can explain why a rocket will fly and reach a certain height. Without this explanation, the Review Board can not be certain the design model you give us work.

Design Packet Items:

1. A sketch of the model rocket.

    The sketch should be neat and have the height, distance around the body, and weight of the rocket labeled.

2. Sketches of the rocket in flight, on its way up, at its maximum height and on its way to the ground.

    These three sketches should be side-by-side on the same piece of paper. Using arrows, science terms and the names of forces, label the sketches to explain the forces that act on the rocket in flight (from launch to touchdown).
    These sketches are a very important part of the design packet. We want to hire the firm that understands and can best explain why rockets fly.

3. A report of tests and results.

    Please list the tests, experiments, and investigations you performed. Then provide for the Review Board a report of the results. For example, what is the height your model rocket will reach with a given engine thrust. Also, can you predict how high a rocket will reach with an engine you did not experiment with directly? Include in your packet any tables, graphs, or test design sketches you think will demonstrate you have thought through the problem carefully.

Good Luck!

Sincerely,

Tony Petrosino,
Director for Student Research
Office of Planning

Goal Setting
Below is a diagram of one way of thinking about the goal setting possibilities of this project. This is intended as a visual organizer for the teacher although students have found it very helpful as well.

Assessment
This project lends itself to many different forms of assessment but the one that has been used the most is the creation of a portfolio. Students can work in small groups and record their observations and measurements and present it as a poster, portfolio, or classroom science project.

Web Link
Visit http://www.nar.org/
This is the web page for the National Association of Rocketry.

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The Project

As outlined In the Design Packet, the project involves creating the following:

1. A sketch of the model rocket.

    The sketch should be neat and have the height, distance around the body, and weight of the rocket labeled.

2. Sketches of the rocket in flight, on its way up, at its maximum height and on its way to the ground.

    These three sketches should be side-by-side on the same piece of paper. Using arrows, science terms and the names of forces, label the sketches to explain the forces that act on the rocket in flight (from launch to touchdown).
    These sketches are a very important part of the design packet. We want to hire the firm that understands and can best explain why rockets fly.

3. A report of tests and results.

    Please list the tests, experiments, and investigations you performed. Then provide for the Review Board a report of the results. For example, what is the height your model rocket will reach with a given engine thrust. Also, can you predict how high a rocket will reach with an engine you did not experiment with directly? Include in your packet any tables, graphs, or test design sketches you think will demonstrate you have thought through the problem carefully.

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Modeling the Process: Searching | Solving | Creating | Sharing

Searching

Students may decide that they want to compare other attributes of the rockets instead of the nose cone design, surface smoothness, or number of fins. For instance, they may want to use progressively more powerful engines. Will this result in a linear function of height (the more powerful engine, the higher the height reached) or maybe the relationship is logarithmic? Some very interesting trends can be examined.

Web Link
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/bgmr.html
An excellent model rocket site.
Hosted by NASA and contains wonderful ideas and lesson plans for using model rockets in your K-16 classroom.

Cooperative Learning
The Distributed Expertise model is a structured way to help formalize Cooperative Learning.

This is a great activity for cooperative learning. You can have groups that investigate the following components of model rockets: fuel, engines, aerodynamics, measuring height, force, and safety.

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Solving

Solving the problem involves gathering information and generating a solution.

In this phase, the groups collect and analyze data. As mentioned in Wakefield, the use of the Searching/Solving/Creating/Sharing model with students might involve using computers as tools for recording or manipulating data. Each group may require some guidance on how to gather information and to answer research questions; given this guidance, they will be capable of solving the problem.

Motivation
In the many years I have done this activity, I have never seen a lack of motivation on the part of the students or teachers. It is an exciting activity and as students begin to address the questions of the Design Letter, their inquiry skills are developed and prolonged engagement comes almost as second nature. This activity is "hands-on" and "minds-on", it involves projectiles moving at speeds up to 100 mph and it requires developed mathematic skills as students compare (and make decisions based on their calculations) various design features.

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Creating

Creating refers to the creation of a product, such as a presentation to the class.

The creation of a product helps facilitate the understanding of the concepts and procedures of what is being studied by the individuals in the group. This information needs next to be shared with the other members of the classroom or wider community.

For example, students can compare their results with another classroom from across the state or across the country. With the use of the Internet, sharing data and results of experiments have been greatly facilitated. Moreover, with additional data, students can compare their results with other classes and learn about concepts such as "the law of large numbers". There are literally thousands of teachers from around the country engaging in model rocket activities each year.

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Sharing

Sharing involves the actual communication of findings.

This is also known as a Consequential Task (Brown & Campione, 1994) in which the students' thinking and reflecting are made public. A consequential task may be a presentation, a demonstration, a multimedia show, or some other form of alternative assessment.

For example:

1) Have students write up their final Design Report on Model Rocket Design

2) Have students create a web site detailing their experiences and results of their launches.

3) Combine this activity with your mathematics teacher for a truly interesting cross-discipline approach.

Enacting in the Classroom
Usually, the students and the teacher decide which group will launch which design. The students decide that the minimum number of trials to be considered "fair" was three. Since, in this example, there are six groups of roughly three students each, it is not feasible for each group to launch three trials of each configuration (e.g., rounded vs. pointed cone). Therefore, the teacher and students decide to have each group launch a particular configuration one time and report the results to the classroom in the form of a table on the blackboard, as well as record the data in fieldbooks and portfolios (see Tables 1, 2, and 3).

Launch days require a great amount of coordination to ready the students for the launch. One adult stands outside in the playground as each group takes roughly 20 minutes to ready the rocket (inserting motor, fuses, checking wires, electricity) and to prepare for data collection (marking off distance from the launch site, testing the altitude measuring device, checking ambient air temperature and atmospheric conditions).

One student stays with the adult at the launch site while the other two prepares for height measurement and flight path observations from approximately 150 meters away. The other adult, the classroom teacher, has the group reflect on what data they need to collect and what outdoor procedures they need to follow. This orchestration allows for a steady stream of rocket launches without the usual confusion that accompanies whole-class model rocket activities

Below is an example of actual data that 5th grade students collected during this model rocket project. More detailed reports have been created when this activity was used by high school and college students in the past.

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Table 1

Student Data Sheet for Model Rocket Launch Data (Painted vs. Unpainted)

Group	Launch site	Temp.	Weather	Painted	Unpainted	Engine Type
#1	Playground	81°	cool, windy, cloudy, humid	169		B4-2
#2	Playground	81°	breeze, cloudy skies	119		B4-2
#3	Playground	81°	cloudy, damp, foggy, breeze		195	B4-2
#4	Playground	82°	warm, cloudy		152	B4-2
#5	Playground	81°	cloudy, warm, breeze		152	B4-2
#6	Playground	79°	sprinkling, cloudy, warm	123		B4-2
#7	Playground	81°	cloudy, light rain, foggy, humid	152		B4-2
			Average	140.75	166.33

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Table 2

Student Data Sheet for Model Launch Data (3 Fins vs. 4 Fins)

Group	Launch site	Temp.	Weather	3 fins	4 fins	Engine Type
#1	Playground	80°	partly cloudy	210		B4-2
#2	Playground	75°	breeze, cloudy skyies	202		B4-2
#3	Playground	81°	cool	119		B4-2
#4	Playground	84°	warm and cloudy		133	B4-2
#5	Playground	85°	cloudy, warm, breeze	118		B4-2
#6	Playground	89°	warm, humid		177	B4-2
#7	Playground	82°	warm		123	B4-2
			Average	162.25	124.33

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Table 3

Student Data Sheet for Model Launch Data (Round vs. Pointed Nose Cones)

Group	Launch site	Temp.	Weather	Pointed	Round	Engine Type
#1	Basketball Court	81°	partly cloudy	163		B4-2
#2	Basketball Court	84°	cool	188		B4-2
#3	Basketball Court	81°	cool		181	B4-2
#4	Basketball Court	80°	warm and cloudy	158		B4-2
#5	Basketball Court	82°	cloudy, warm, breeze	123		B4-2
#6	Basketball Court	90°	warm, humid		190	B4-2
#7	Basketball Court	88°	warm		252	B4-2
			Average	158.00	207.20

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