1. ENGAGE:
   There are several ways to engage students in this activity. You could start by showing Rocket to the Stars, which can be streamed from the the Apple Learning Interchange or the South Carolina Educational TV website to show your students how math is important in the study of space exploration. This could be followed by the hands-on activity in the Educators Guide. Start the Park and Mail Challenge web activity with a story. It would take place in an extrasolar system far far away on Norbert's home planet, Norbania. Norbert has a very Massive Space Garage and the magical Norbanian Postal System is very challenging to use and you can make up the rest. Ask why Norbert needs a Massive Space Garage (His garage is in space so there is nothing to keep his garage from moving rapidly away when Norbert collides with the spring. If his garage is very massive, it won't move as much.) How will they help Zot mail the package? (They will have to understand kinetic and gravitational potential energy.) Squeak, an engaging multimedia authoring environment, will grab the attention of young learners.
2. EXPLORE:
   In the Park and Mail Challenges, your students should first explore by observing the energies involved as Norbert parks his sled and Zot mails his package. They should try to come up with a theorem relating the energies. (The sum of the energies is constant or energy is conserved.) There are directions in the book in the activity when they get to the more serious business of taking data and plotting their results. Have them work in groups on the first two challenges with each member contributing ideas. By comparing their ideas, they can check each other and come up with the best explanations. Within their groups and between groups, have them explore the plotting and analysis of the data they took. They will discover the relationship between the variables and the energies and verify the conservation of energy. The whole activity is one big exploration in measurement, plotting, analysis, and mathematics.
3. EXPLAIN:
   To prepare students for an oral presentation, assign as homework the task to write out a presentation of their observations and analysis. Encourage them to accompany their words with pictures they draw. Have your students describe, discuss and explain their data and the transfer and conservation of energy. They should explain what they observe clearly and note any mathematical patterns they see in the data.
4. EXTEND:
   Close this window and follow the link in the Teacher Information area for a list of extensions. You should modify the suggested extensions to fit the class time you have available and based on the knowledge level of your students.
5. EVALUATE:
   Have your students evaluate how reliable they believe their data and analysis to be. Note that there may be some error because the simulation is a numerical approximation. If dt is very small, the error is correspondingly smaller. If dt is too large for their values, your students may observe some error. Your students should be aware of the possible error and not discount conclusions, such as the sum of the energies is constant, because the theorem doesn't hold in the last place sometimes. Scientists are often challenged to draw the best conclusions they can from experiments or simulations that have error.