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A No-Touch Backyard Game worksheet preview

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A No-Touch Backyard Game

Define a backyard game design problem, compare magnetic movement tests, and predict which plans meet the game's goals and limits.

Grade 3ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned to3-PS2-4

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What’s included

  • Single worksheet
  • Auto-graded online
  • 1 NGSS standard
  • Printable answer key
  • 13 questions
  • Classroom-ready

Details

Format
Interactive · Printable
Grade
Grade 3
Subject
Science
Question types
Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

  • Students define a simple game design problem that magnetic attraction can help solve.
  • Students distinguish a design's success goals from its supply limits.
  • Students use test evidence to predict and evaluate magnetic game designs.

How to use

Read the game challenge together. Have students compare the test results, then explain how their proposed design meets the goals and supply limits.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

3-PS2-4

Define a simple design problem that magnets can solve.

Preview

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Name Date

A No-Touch Backyard Game

Use test results to plan a game that magnets can help solve.

Understand the Challenge

Read about the backyard game. Choose or sort answers using the observations and rules.

The Beetle Race

At a backyard picnic table, Nia is making a game for her cousins. A flat steel token looks like a beetle. Players slide it along a 30-centimeter path drawn on a sheet. When players reach across the sheet, their hands sometimes bump the path markers. Nia wants players to guide the beetle without touching the token or reaching over the sheet.

An adult places the sheet on two stable supports. There is room for a hand below it. The adult also provides a magnet sealed inside a large handle. Nia holds the magnet against the underside of a thin plastic sheet. When she moves the magnet, the steel beetle follows along the top. A wooden beetle does not follow the magnet in the same quick test.

The game has two success goals: the beetle must finish the whole path in all five trials without a hand touching the top, and the sheet must stay flat. The supply rules allow only the existing handled magnet and one sheet, with no batteries. For the sheet tests, Nia changes only the sheet material. She keeps the steel beetle, magnet, supports, and path length the same. Each trial starts with the beetle at the same starting line.

1.
Which question best describes the design problem Nia needs to solve?
  • A. How can players push the beetle faster with their fingers?
  • B. How can players guide the beetle without reaching over the sheet?
  • C. How can players make the wooden beetle heavier than the steel one?
  • D. How can players move the path markers instead of the beetle?
2.
Sort each part of the challenge.
The beetle finishes the path in all five trials.Use only the magnet already provided.The sheet stays flat during play.Do not use batteries.
What the game must doRules about supplies

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