Sled Wars Gizmo/ Student Exploration: Sled Wars 2021

Sled Wars Gizmo/ Student Exploration: Sled Wars 2021 Name: Date: Student Exploration: Sled Wars Vocabulary: acceleration, energy, friction, kinetic energy, momentum, potential energy, speed Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.) 1. A firefighter is trying to break through a door. Is he more likely to break through if he runs at the door very slowly or if he runs at the door very fast? Explain your answer. He will more likely break through the door if he runs at a faster rate because the force of him hitting the door at a higher speed than at a lower speed is much greater. 2. Two firefighters are trying to break through a door. One firefighter is heavy, and the other is light. If they run at the same speed, which one is more likely to break through? Explain. The heavier firefighter is more likely to break through because with more mass, there will be a greater force acted on the door as it makes contact. Gizmo Warm-up The ability to crash through doors and cause other changes depends on an object’s energy. With the Sled Wars Gizmo™, you will explore the factors that affect the energy of a sled. The Gizmo shows a Yeti named Burt riding his sled down a steep hill. Burt plays a game where he tries to wreck as many snowmen as he can. 1. Use the slider to set the Snowmen to 5. Check that the height of the sled is 25.0 m. Click Play ( ). How many snowmen does the sled destroy? 1.23 2. Click Reset ( ). Set the Red sled mass to 200 kg. Click Play. How many snowmen does the sled destroy this time? 2.45 3. Click Reset. Drag the sled to the top of the hill so the starting height is 50.0 m. Click Play. A. How many snowmen are destroyed now? 4.90 B. Why do you think this is so? When Burt starts higher on the hill, he has more potential energy that is transferred into kinetic energy as he goes down the hill which allows him to destroy more sno