Wheels - Skateboarding Episode 102



1) Getting Started
• How many of you skateboard? Rollerblade? Have you ever replaced your wheels, or had someone do it for you?

• What properties of a skateboard affect the rider’s ability to do stunts (e.g. board size, wheel size, other)?

• If you could pick out your own skateboard from a pro shop, how would you decide what kind to buy? (Collect ideas on a chart or the blackboard.)

2) Going Deeper
• What skateboard features can we observe/measure (e.g. size, length, weight, springiness, wheel characteristics, distance between wheels)?

• Because you choose a skateboard according to how well you can ride it, what performance qualities could we measure (e.g. speed, control, jump height, maneuverability)?

• Which of those features should we select? How will we measure/observe them? How many measurements should we make? Try to select a board characteristic and match it to a performance.

• What will we do with the data we collect (e.g. tabulate, graph, compare, average)?

3) Investigate With DragonflyTV
• Watch the video and see how Chuck and Jake investigated skateboards — OR — give your students data from the video (go to investigations to explore) and have them draw their own conclusions.

• Is it necessary to calculate a speed, or can you just use the stopwatch times? What kind of a stopwatch reading indicates a faster speed?

• What do the boys’ results say about wheel size and speed in their test?

• What does it mean that Chuck’s slalom results came out differently from Jake’s?

4) Investigate On Your Own
Using Skateboard or Motocross as a model, ask your students to design their own investigations. These challenge cards for student teams may help!