This parent guide supports parents in helping their child at home with the 3rd grade Science content. Within the folder you will access Parent Guide PDFs in FIVE Languages: Arabic, English, Hindi, Spanish, and Vietnamese to help on-going communication with caregivers.
This resource accompanies our Rethink 3rd Grade Science course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning.
Students will compare speeds of different objects over the same distance in order to explain how weight affects speed.
Students will drop a small weight attached to a string, once without a parachute and once with a parachute and compare how fast each falls.
In this lesson, students will discover the results of force applied to an object using balls of varying weights.
In this activity, students play catch with a friend and observe what happens to the ball. Students then click on links to watch short video clips of balls being thrown and dropped. After predicting what will happen, students watch video clips of different sized balls being dropped and compare the dropping rates. Students analyze their observations with provided questions.
Students will experience force and speed by constructing model cars in cooperative groups. The students will explore ways to move their cars at different speeds. Each group will create a PhotoStory describing their cars.
In this lesson, students demonstrate how forces cause changes in speed or direction of objects by using a pulley to lift objects. Students compare the amount of force needed to lift the load with and without the pulley. Students record their learning on a provided worksheet.
In this lesson, students will read the book "What's Faster Than a Speeding Cheetah?" by Robert E. Wells and make comparisons of the speeds mentioned in the text. Then they will set up a simple experiment to investigate motion of a toy car moving down ramps of various slopes.
In this activity, students will make go-carts and measure the speed, then change different factors of the experiment and see how the speed changes. In day 1, students will design and build a cart based on a specified set of materials, and then complete several trials to test the cart by rolling it down a ramp. Through discussion and journaling students will share their designs and compare the speeds of carts. In day 2, students will experiment with ways to increase or decrease the speed of their cart.
In this short video and accompanying experiment activity and readings, students learn about all kinds of forces in motion at Falls Lake State Recreation Area. Chopping wood, riding a bike, pitching a tent, canoeing — students can see each of these examples to discover out how objects (and people) move in their surroundings.
Students will be grouped into teams. Then each team will create a pathway for their Hexbug to travel. The Hexbug path should be 5 feet from beginning to end and must include two curves, a hill, one bridge and one tunnel. The Hexbug must travel from the beginning to the end without any assistance. Each team will have a timer and will have 20 minutes to design the quickest path they can for their Hexbug. After the first race teams will have 5 minutes to talk about changes they can make and 5 minutes to make the changes. There will be one final race to see if a different team is able to win.
In this first hands-on lesson in a two part series, students will explore and measure the rate of spherical objects rolling down a ramp. Assessment suggestions and real-life connections are included.
In this interactive second lesson in a two-part series, students explore ramps. They design and create plans for ramps; and then they build, test, evaluate and adjust the make up of the ramps they create to determine the ramp that will allow objects to roll the longest distance. Lesson extensions include probing questions, a Ramp Builders activity sheet, an assessment suggestion and alternative activities using the ramps which include timing the rolling objects, building ramps where items go up, a web link for differentiated learning and real life applcations.
This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 3rd Grade Science.
This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 3rd Grade Science.
In this STEM lesson, students will use the engineering design process to design and construct rocket-powered racing cars with which to investigate Newton's Laws of Motion. Each student will construct his or her own car from food trays, and will use inflated balloons to power the car (thrust). Students conduct three trials and measure the distance traveled by the cars. Between trials, students modify their designs to improve performance and solve any "mechanical" problems that crop up. At the conclusion of the activity, students submit a report on their racer design and how it performed in the trials.
This is a hands-on lesson that uses science and the steps of the Engineering Design Process to determine important properties in sail design materials and learn how to harness wind power. Students will learn that a problem can be solved in different ways using different materials.
Students work to solve an interactive Rube Goldberg project using strategic trial and error processes. They begin at level one and increase levels as they become successful on the free website engineering.com
In this lesson, students will investigate the basic concepts of speed and distance. They will time how long it takes them to move at varying speeds through several distance measures.