Scenario
"3-2-1 Lift Off!" is a national contest sponsored by an aerospace company for fifth grade students. In this contest students design and test Alka-Seltzer powered rockets. Contest information and rules have been sent to your fifth grade teacher.
To compete in the contest, you will need to learn about Alka-Seltzer rockets by designing and testing them. Later, you will send your rocket design and test data to the contest sponsors, where their engineers will review your design and evaluate it using the rubric "Alka-Seltzer Rocket Design", which is located in the Rubric section below. The rocket you design and launch will be powered by a chemical reaction – Alka-Seltzer in a liquid.
In order to participate in the contest, you must work both as a scientist and an engineer investigating and using this chemical reaction. Your goal is to build and test a rocket that will achieve the highest launch height using Alka-Seltzer and a liquid.
You already know that building a rocket which will fly is a tough challenge because the gravitational pull of Earth works to keep us here -- on Earth that is! In order to be successful, you will need to think about the following questions:
 | What is the scientific process? |
| What is a chemical reaction and how does it produce the energy my rocket needs to fly? |
| What is gravity? Is there anything I can do in my experiment to minimize the effects of gravity? |
| What is Newton's Third Law and how does it help me explain why my rocket flies despite the effects of gravity? |
Task
An aerospace company has just announced a "Design an Alka-Seltzer Rocket" contest for all fifth grade students. Your task is to create the rocket and design an experiment which tests what variables cause the rocket to blast off the quickest and fly the highest by:
| Creating a hypothesis |
| Performing a controlled experiment, or "fair test" |
| Measuring and analyzing the results |
| Explaining how and why your rocket flies. |
Product
| Your question or problem |
| Your hypothesis about which variables will make your rocket blast off the quickest and fly the highest. |
| A description of your procedures, including a scientific drawing of your rocket |
| The data you collected from your experiments organized into either a graph or chart. |
| A conclusion that explains the results of your experiment AND includes a description of what you learned about the scientific process. Be sure to include an explanation of the chemical reaction that fueled your rocket, as well as, how gravity and Newton's Third Law affected your experiment. |
| A bibliography of all the sources you used to obtain information |
Assessments
The following scoring tools will be used to assess both the process of gathering information and your finished product:
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Question
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Essential Question: How does building a model rocket help you understand the scientific process and Newton's Third Law? |
Subsidiary questions
| What is the scientific process?
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| What is a chemical reaction and how does it produce the energy my rocket needs to fly? | ||||||||||||||
| What is gravity? Is there anything I can do in my experiment to minimize the effects of gravity? | ||||||||||||||
| What is Newton's Third Law and how does it help me explain why my rocket flies despite the effects of gravity? |
Gather and Sort
Gather information from a variety of sources.
Sort your research findings using these graphic organizers: Scientific Process; Chemical Reactions; Gravity; and Newton's Laws. Be sure to avoid plagiarism and keep track of your resources for a bibliography, or Works Cited page. Need help creating the citation? Try Quick Cite by Noodle Tools.
Organize
Analyze your completed graphic organizer. If you do not have enough information to answer your questions, return to the Resources page and look for more information. If you do have enough information, then, synthesize your findings by choosing to answer one of the following questions using a ECR format.
| How do chemical reactions produce energy?
| What might affect gravity? | How does Newton's Third Law explain why your rocket was able to
fly? | |
Conclusion
Reflection and/or Extension Activities: How did using the scientific process help you understand how scientists create experiments to explain the world around us? How did creating a model rocket help you to understand how the changes made to models can apply to real objects?