Hongxi Mao

Patrycja Nowak
Wheels and Axles Go Round and Round
Description
In this lesson, students will discover the different distance that different size wheels can travel,
and be able to compare the difference that different wheel sizes have on traveled distance
through the models that they design.
Science and Engineering Practices:
Modeling in K-2 builds on prior experiences and progresses to include using and developing
models (i.e., diagram, drawing, physical replica, diorama, dramatization, or story board) that
represent concrete events or design solutions.
Develop a simple model based on evidence to represent a proposed object or tool.
Disciplinary Core Ideas:
ET S1.B: Developing Possible Solutions
Designs can be conveyed through sketches, drawings, or physical models.
These representations are useful in communicating ideas for a problems solutions to other
people.
Crosscutting Concepts:
The shape and stability of structures of natural and designed objects are related to their
function(s).
Learning Performance:
Students will be able to design a drawing of cars with wheels to show that bigger wheels will
travel further distance compared to smaller wheels in one spin.
Suggested Grade: 2nd grade
Standards:
Engineering Design
K-2-ETS1-2. Develop a simple sketch, drawing, or physical model to illustrate how the shape
of an object helps it function as needed to solve a given problem.
Driving Question:
What size wheel is best for your car to get to McKinley Park first to watch a soccer game?
Books:
Title: Tires, Spokes, and Sprockets
Author: Michael Dahl
Illustrator: Denise Shea
Publisher: Nonfiction Picture Books
Year: 2006

Genre: Informational Non-fiction

Summary: This book describes lots of different kinds of wheels and axles. It also includes the
uses and benefits of them. There are also information about the gears and sprockets, but we will
not be using this part for our lesson.

Background knowledge for the teacher:

Wheels always need axle to help it move on the car, and the distance that the wheel travels in one
rotation depends on the size of the wheel. The bigger wheels will travel more distance than the
smaller wheels. That is because the bigger the wheel, the longer the diameter. The distance the
wheel travels can also be known as the circumference. The circumference of a circle is the
distance around. When an object is bigger, the distance around it is more. Therefore, the size of
the wheel affects the distance it travels.
Time Needed:
Day 1: Engage the students by letting them predict which wheel size can travel more distance,
and assess prior knowledge about the information they know about wheels on the cars.
Day 2: Explore with different size wheels and pieces of string, and explain what they found after
comparing the string chart.
Day 3: Elaborate that bigger wheels go further through solving a new problem; and evaluate their
understanding of the relationship between wheel size and distance through their drawings.
Materials:
The book Tires, Spokes, and Sprockets
Computer
Projector

 Different size wheels (see the wheels on page 7, make 5 copies of this page, and cut out each
wheel for the students before class)
String
Ruler if needed
Tape/glue
Pencils
String chart (see page 6)
Student Pages:
Drawing and modify drawing page
String chart (see page 6)

Figure 1. String Chart

Name:
Please tape your strings below according to the size of the wheel
Large wheel:

Medium wheel:

Small wheel:

Engage: 30 minutes total

1. Teacher tells the students Why do we need to know about wheel and axle? 5 minutes
There are many accidents that are happening on the roads and people are losing their lives
because of those accidents. People who research and design cars have to take many things into
consideration when they are designing and making a car that are more safe for people to drive.
One of the parts that they have to take into consideration is the wheel. That is why we need to
learn about wheels. For today, we are going to focus on the distance different size wheels can
travel.
2. Teacher holds up the different size wheels. 5 minutes step 2-5
3. Teacher asks students to predict which wheel will travel more distance in one turn.
4. Wheels need be labeled ahead of time, labeled with 1, 2, and 3. 1 is for the big wheel, 2 is
for the medium wheel, and 3 is for the small wheel.
5. Teacher asks the students to hold up their fingers with 1, 2, or 3 fingers to give their
answers.
6. Then, teacher passes out white paper and have to design (through drawing) what they
think they can use in their lives if they are traveling given the scenario: 20 minutes
7. Teacher reads, You are going to McKinley Park to watch a soccer game, and whoever
gets there first will get a prize. You need to design a car that can travel a mile with fewer
spins. You get to pick the size of the wheel, what wheel size will you have for your car?
8. Teacher collects the drawings and puts it away in a safe place.
There are homework boxes on the teachers desk, where the teacher can keep the drawings safe.
The drawing activity is planned such that all students can actively participate, including the two
students that have trouble with writing, and the one student with a learning disability can do this
activity. In school and science classrooms, students may be at different levels. We need to
promote equity in classrooms because different students will have different needs. By giving the
students the same kind of materials, lessons, and help, it is promoting equality. However, that is
not actually fair to them. We need to have ways that can accommodate every student in our class
based on what their needs are. In the science class, we need to take into account what kind of
scaffolding each student will need, and is appropriate for them in order to help them learn the
concepts at a deeper level.
Explore: 20 minutes total
Activity 1: 10 minutes
1. Teacher will show students a picture of Ruedas chips.

2. Teacher asks the students go around the classroom and look for one thing that looks like
wheels.
3. Students will share what they found in their groups.
Pictures used for Activity 2:

Teacher prints out pictures of the wheel (shown above) and pastes them on notecards. Then,
teacher cuts out the wheels to make it available for the students to use. Teacher also needs to
have strings in students groups so they can measure with those strings.
Teacher should allow the students to use supplies from the material bins if they need to use it
during the activities.
Activity 2: 10 minutes
1. Teacher will pass out the strings, scissors, tape, string charts, and the prepared notecard
wheels.
The notecard wheels should be in three different sizes, there is a large wheel, medium
wheel, and a small wheel.
2. Teacher demonstrates one way that the students can use to measure the length of the wheels
in one turn.
Teacher holds the wheel with one end of the string at the edge of the notecard wheel.
Teacher guides the string around the edge of the notecard wheel and wraps it around
the whole wheel.
Teacher uses her free hand to cut the string.
Teachers take the piece of string and tape it onto the string chart.
3. Remind the students to remember that the length of the distance string is how much the
wheel travels in one circle.
4. Teachers will walk around the classroom to see how the students are doing in their groups.
Teacher is walking around to check the ways that the students wrap the strings around the wheel.
Students will use the information they gather at the above steps for discussion later on.

5. Students discuss in their groups about their findings. 5 minutes

Teacher walks around the classroom to listen to students discussion. Ask them to clarify their
answers with questions like:
Why do you think that?
Can you explain more?
Can you tell me more about what you think?

6. Teachers pull the class back together and start the discussion as a whole group.
Possible questions to ask during the discussion:
Ever wonder how a big wheel can move compared to a small wheel?
Can it move more, the same or less distance with one spin?
Who can tell me how you can show whether one moves further than the other?
How can you measure the distance?
If you wanted to go further with the same number of spins, which wheel would you use, a big
wheel or small wheel? Why?
How did some of you compare the lengths?
What does that mean for us if we are making a car right now?
Students might have alternative conceptions about the relationship between the sizes of the
wheels with the distance that the wheels travel in this activity. That is why we need to remind
them to use the evidence they gathered through the activity (the string chart) while they are
formulating their explanations. Students might say that smaller wheels can travel longer
distance because they can roll faster. Or they might say the bigger wheels will travel more
distance because it is big without other explanations.
Explain: 35 minutes
Students will share what they found with the support from their string chart. 3 minutes
They should have something like the following.

They will be able to point out which wheel will travel further if it makes one turn. 7 minutes
Students will be able to listen to the explanations from their peers and give their opinions about
the comments.
Students will be able to use their string charts as evidence to support their observations or to
object to others comments.
Remember that the length of the distance string is how much the wheel travels in one circle.
Teacher needs to support the students during this process. 8 minutes
When students agree with what others said, the teacher needs to ask them to elaborate. The
teacher should ask:
How can you tell? Can you show me how you came up with that?
How can you use the string chart you made to say that he or she is right with his or her
observation?
Why did you agree with him or her?
If the students disagree, the teacher needs to ask:
What do you think?
What evidence do you have?
How can you tell that he or she is wrong from the evidence you gathered from this
activity?
Can you tell me more about this?
Does anyone else think like (insert students name)?
Tires, Spokes, and Sprockets read aloud 10 minutes
This book should explain what wheels and axles are and how they are used in everyday life. It
will give them time to think about questions to ask. It also gives them some information about
wheels and axles to keep as their background knowledge for them to make the connections with
the activity.

Connecting to Common Core:

Reading: Literature
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.1 With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key
details in a text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.1 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.2.7 Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or
digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.
Teacher will introduce vocabulary by writing them on the board and telling the students to pay
close attention to them while listening to the read aloud:
wheel
axle
roll
spin
Read aloud Tires, Spokes, and Sprockets. Pausing at certain pages, specified below, to ask
comprehension questions to check the students understanding.
Page 5 What kinds of transportation vehicles were mentioned in the book?
What do all of them have in common?
Page 6 What are machines?
What else do we know about wheels now?
Page 9 What are axles?
What is it used for?
So now what do car, trucks, and buses have in common?
Page 11 What is something that wheel and axle can help us do?
Can you think of any other examples where we can use wheel and axle?
The purpose of reading the book and asking the questions is to get students to start thinking
about wheels and how they are related to things that they see in their lives every day. They will
be thinking about how they can link what they learned from the book to what they have found
through the activity, and use that information for the elaborate phase of the lesson.
Students will talk about what the vocabulary words mean from listening to the story.
Teachers can reread some parts of the books for the students to have context clues.
Then, students discuss in groups about the connections that they can make from the activity and
the book.
Teacher facilitates the whole group discussion by encouraging them to explain their thinking, and
asking for clarification. 7 minutes

Questions teacher may ask during the discussion:

Who can tell me how you can show whether one moves further than the other?
How can you measure the distance?
Can you explain what you said a little more to help everyone to understand?
What did (insert students name) just say?
What does that mean to us?

Teachers can ask students to explain what one student just said in their own words.
Can you explain what (insert students name) said in your own words?
Who can tell me what (insert students name) meant when he or she said that?
This is also a phase where students might have alternative conceptions about the relationship
between the sizes of the wheels with the distance that the wheels travel in this activity. So we
have to remind them again to use the evidence they gathered through the activity (the string
chart) while they are formulating their explanations.
Elaborate: 15 minutes
Teacher will need to write the following on the board:
You need to design a new car now for your family. They need to go to work or school with that
car, and they have to go 10 miles. To make their wheels spin less and travel more distance in
each spin, which size wheel would you pick and why?
This is used to assess whether they are able to use what they learned from the earlier activities
and apply on another given problem.
Students will be asked to draw another picture of the car they want to use taking in
considerations the size of the wheels and the distance it can travel in one turn, and be able to
explain to their partners about their rationale behind choosing that size wheel.
Students should be able to apply what they learned from the previous phases and use that to
solve new problems. Therefore, giving them a new scenario is needed. Also, we have to
remember that the students value their families a lot. So we think it is good to give them a
scenario that includes their family. When the students in our class gets something from the
teachers, they would ask whether they can get another one for their family. This shows that they
always keep their family in mind. The fact that they constantly talk to us about their family
members and what they want to get for their family member shows us that this is a problem that
they can relate to.
Evaluate: 10 minutes
Students will get their initial drawings that they did on the first day back.
Students will modify the vehicle they drew from the first day during the engage phase.
At the bottom of the paper, they will have to explain in a sentence or two about how they know
what size wheels they will need for the vehicles they drew.
At the same time, teacher will repeat the problem that was posed the day before.
You are going to McKinley Park to watch a soccer game, and whoever gets there first will get a
prize. You need to design a car that can travel a mile with fewer spins. You get to pick the size of
the wheel, what wheel size will you have for your car?

Then, teacher will collect the drawing and explanation to assess students models.
This assessment connects to their prior knowledge and gives them a chance to modify their
designs. It is also accessible for students with special circumstances. If a student has problems
with writing in complete sentences, this can allow him or her to express their thinking through
another way (drawing). It also allows students with language difficulties, which some students in
our class do have problems with expressing themselves in English, to work on this assessment.
For the assessment, teacher will mainly look at the change that the students made from day 1s
drawing. Teacher needs to look for if their final drawings have wheels that are bigger than the
first one. This is what the teacher should mainly look at to make this accessible for students with
difficulty explaining and writing.
Homework:
Go home with the Wheel size list in figure 2. Ask your parents for help if needed.

Figure 2: Homework

Name:_______________________________
Please go home and search for things in your house that matches the size of the wheels below.
Then, on the back of the paper, please write which wheel will travel the longest distance in one
turn, and explain. You may ask your family members to help you look for the list.
* Tip: you can hold up the object in front of the wheels to see if their sizes match.
1. Write down 3 things in your house that is the size of this wheel:

2. Write down 3 things in your house that is the size of this wheel:

3. Write down 3 things in your house that is the size of this wheel:

The students should be able to do this activity on their own with what they learned in class. If
they do have trouble finding items to resemble the wheels size, their family members should be
able to help with that. This assignment, unlike most of the homework assignments, does not
require parents with any specific educational level to help their children. This can also serve as
a summative assessment for the teacher to get a sense of where the students are about this topic.