What happens to energy when cars collide?

The students have been working really hard learning about kinetic and potential energy. At the beginning of the week, the students chose a variable, some aspect they wanted to change, in order to test what happens when 2 cars collide. Their options were to change the height at which the cars started at, the speed at which they traveled before colliding, one car moving or two cars moving, or the size of the cars (small, medium, or large combinations).

Each group had to design their own way of testing to see what happens when their cars collide based on their variables.  Afterwards, each group shared out their results! It was so exciting to hear them using their vocabulary words, kinetic energy, potential energy, transformed, transferred, speed, and gravity to describe their findings!

Enjoy the pictures of their collision lab! They sure had fun!