Designing Solutions to Concussions (Classroom)

This unit will introduce students to the issue of concussions. Students will try to resolve this problem by ultimately designing a new helmet. Activities throughout will explain the physics of collisions and how materials can reduce concussion events.

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Learning Objectives

Students will know

Newton’s three laws of motion
The relationship between force, time, mass, and change in velocity

Students will understand

How the application of force to the head can cause trauma
How helmet materials reduce the chances of concussions.

Students will be able to

Complete the engineering design process to protect an egg from a fall
Analyze data (including force, velocity, acceleration, and time) to determine the most protective material for a collision.
Analyze data by creating tables and graphs.

Standards Alignments + Connections

Unit Plan

Activities to Gather Evidence

Bouncing Balls

Understanding Momentum

Students will drop three different balls on a surface and measure the bounce height. This will introduce the relationship between mass and momentum to the students.

Bouncing Balls: Understanding Momentum

Egg Drop Challenge

Learning About Protective Materials

Students will design a protective barrier for an egg, so that the egg can survive a drop from 4, 6, and 8 ft. This will introduce students to the protective materials.

Egg Drop Challenge

Egg Drop Simulation

How Materials are Protective

Students use a simulation to collect data regarding the egg’s change in velocity, the time of the collision, and the force experienced. The main takeaway from this is that the force can be lowered by increasing the time of the collision. This force experienced by the egg is the same force felt by the floor surface.

Egg Drop Simulation

Football in the Lab

NFL Data

Students discuss data collected by reconstructed NFL collisions that resulted in concussions. Students will graph data to learn how acceleration and impact force are related. Students will also compare collisions that resulted in concussions and collisions that did not in the form of a bar graph.

Football in the Lab

Designing a Safer Helmet

Designing Solutions

Students pick a material to use in a new helmet design. Students then analyze the provided data to compare their material to no protection and see how the values of force and time of collision differ.

Designing a Safer Helmet

Conclusion Assessment

Students design a poster advertisement for their newly designed helmet, complete with slogans, pictures, and data.

Evaluating a Design

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