WorksheetPremium

Longboard Clinic: Graphing Speed, Mass and Kinetic Energy

Grade 8 kinetic energy practice: read a bar graph and tables from a longboard clinic to compare how mass and speed each change a rider's kinetic energy.

Grade 8ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned toMS-PS3-1

Buy this worksheet: $1.50

Or unlock every Premium worksheet with Premium

PrintUnlock to print

Answer keyUnlock to see answers

Assign to classUnlock to assign with a class code

What’s included

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

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 8
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Matching, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students interpret a graph and tables to show that kinetic energy grows with the square of speed.
Students use data to show that kinetic energy is proportional to mass at a fixed speed.
Students compare riders with different masses and speeds using kinetic energy.

How to use

Review the kinetic energy formula from the passage before students begin. Let them check each calculation against the graph or tables, then discuss question 10 as a class.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

MS-PS3-1

Use graphs and tables to show how kinetic energy depends on an object's mass and its speed.

Preview

OwlSheets.com

Name Date

Longboard Clinic: Graphing Speed, Mass and Kinetic Energy

Use radar data from a longboard club to see how mass and speed each change kinetic energy.

Changing the speed

Read the passage and the bar graph, then answer the questions.

Speed Check at the Cone Line

1On Sunday mornings, the road through Alder Ridge Park is closed to cars, and a youth longboard club practices on its long, gentle hill. Coach Ottilie Ramaswamy runs a "speed sense" clinic so riders learn how much energy they carry before they ride near walkers and bikes. Every rider wears a helmet, gloves and pads. Many of the riders are new to the hill this season, and the coach wants them to see real data about their own runs, not just hear warnings.

2Near the bottom of the hill, the club set out a line of orange cones. Club member Bram Nakashima stood behind the cones with a radar gun, the kind used at baseball games, and measured each rider's speed as they crossed the line. Before the clinic, every rider stood on a bathroom scale holding their board, so the club knew each total mass of rider plus board.

3Coach Ramaswamy explained that kinetic energy is the energy an object has because it is moving. It can be found with the formula KE = ½ × m × v², where m is the mass in kilograms and v is the speed in meters per second. The answer is in joules (J). Riders could feel the difference, too: the faster runs took a much longer distance to slow down by dragging a foot.

4The club ran two tests. In the first, Bram handed the radar gun to a friend and rode himself three times, starting from different points on the hill, so he crossed the line at 2 m/s, 4 m/s and 6 m/s. In the second, four riders with different total masses each started from the spot that brought them to the cone line at 4 m/s. Each rider rode three times, and the club used the run closest to 4 m/s.

5After the tests, rider Leilani Forsberg, with a total mass of 40 kg, crossed the line at 6 m/s. Right behind her came Coach Ramaswamy on her own board, with a total mass of 90 kg, at 4 m/s. Leilani said the coach's run must have carried more energy, because the coach's total mass is so much greater.