Get a free trial until June 30, 2026!
New members get full access to our science units, hands-on activities, mini-lessons, & more!

New members get a full, free trial through June 2026!

This Mystery is out of date! Please proceed to Energizing Everything to see the updated version.
Back > Share
Why is the first hill of a roller coaster always the highest?
Energizing Everything Unit | Lesson 3 of 5

Why is the first hill of a roller coaster always the highest?

Energizing Everything Unit | Lesson 3 of 5
Lesson narration:
Scroll for prep

DISCUSS:

The first hill of a roller coaster is always the highest. Why can't the second or third hill be higher than the first?

DISCUSS:

Why does the marble make it over the lower hill, but not the higher one?

Time check!

The following Bumper Coaster activity can take up to an hour.

If your time is limited, you might want to save the activity for your next science lesson.

If you need a natural stopping point!

Teachers: If you are short on time, this is a good stopping point. We recommend leaving your students' tracks set up so they can get right to their final experiments at the start of the next session.

If you’re continuing right now, advance to the next slide.

🎉 That’s it for this lesson! How did it go?
Sign up now for more great lessons!
# Extensions
Below are ideas for extending this topic beyond the Exploration and Activity you just completed.
# Activity: Swinging Science

Explore energy using a playground swing. Swinging with Style is a playground activity that gives kids a chance to burn off energy while learning science. Your students will gather data in the playground, then graph and analyze their results.

Science of Swinging is a more extended exploration of pendulums. It provides detailed background information for the teacher.

Both resources were created by Teach Engineering, a digital library of classroom science resources compiled by university educators with National Science Foundation support.

# Distance Learning Challenge: Experiment With Hills

In the last lesson, we provided instructions for making a basic Bumper Coaster, using paper, scissors, and tape. That coaster starts with a hill, but the rest of the track is level.

Here’s a challenge: can you add more hills to that bumper coaster track? You can use paper, scissors, and tape. To make your hills, you can stack boxes or books.

Your track starts with a tall hill. Can you add a medium hill and a small hill?

Lesson narration:

Grade 4

Energy & Energy Transfer

Energy Transfer & Engineering

4-PS3-1, 4-PS3-3

3084 reviews

Activity Prep

Print Prep
THIS LESSON WAS REVISED ON JULY 1, 2019. Here is a link to the previous version.
In this lesson, students will explore how high the hills of a roller coaster can be. In the activity, Bumper Coasters (Part II), students add hills to the Bumper Coaster they built in Lesson 2 and experiment to build a deeper understanding of hills and energy.
Preview activity

Exploration

17 mins

Wrap-Up

3 mins

Grade 4

Energy & Energy Transfer

Energy Transfer & Engineering

4-PS3-1, 4-PS3-3

3084 reviews
Slow internet or video problems?
 
Energy Lesson 3: Why is the first hill of a roller coaster always the highest?

How did the lesson go?
Terrible OK Good Great Terrific!

How can we improve it?

If you'd like our team to reply to you, please Contact Support instead.

Thanks for your feedback! If you have a question or need help, please contact us. Please consider sharing your review:

Sorry the lesson didn’t go well. We read every single review in an effort to improve our Mysteries.

Thanks for letting us know. We’ll wait to ask you for feedback until after you've actually taught it.

Thanks for the feedback! We read every single review in an effort to improve our Mysteries.

Is the video not playing properly?

Please follow these steps:

  1. Very rarely a video will fail to completely load in your browser. Try to reload this page to see if that fixes the problem.
  2. If reloading does not help, try our other video player .
  3. If the video still fails to play, open this video in a new tab and please let us know you’re having trouble. We want to fix this issue for you.

Close

How can we help you?

💡For purchasing info, see our Pricing Page

This episode is locked

This lesson is not included in your limited access.

View pricing

This episode is locked

Your membership is expired. The archive of past Mini Lessons is not included in your limited access.

View pricing