The Calculator Controlled Robots activities are designed to engage students in hands-on inquiry-based missions. These activities address National science and technology standards, as well as specifically focusing on mathematics content and process standards. There are ten missions and three exploration extensions that provide activities for up to…

As part of the "Car Lab Project," students constructed rubber band cars, raced them, and worked through a number of automotive activities. The students engaged in this project certainly had fun, but they also used high-tech gear such as motion sensors and graphing calculators to gather data on the distance and time cars traveled and to generate…

This paper presents three activities on how to analyze rates of change in real-life situations using TI-83 calculators and computer-based laboratories. Activities include 24 hour temperature data, the temperature of a light bulb, and an M&M toss. Each section contains descriptions of equipment/materials, data collection, and data analysis. The…

Presents the "Before Technology and After Technology" lab where students first complete a simple lab and graph the data by hand and then repeat the lab using graphing calculators. Enables students to see how technology can make data collecting, graphing, and analyzing more fun. (JRH)

In this presentation we will investigate the mathematics and physics of a free-falling object, not for the purpose of research to discover some profound physical phenomena, but rather to enhance students' ability to gather, organize, and analyze data using state of the art hand held technology. We will use the TI-83 plus (a sophisticated graphing…

Presents Texas Instruments' new Calculator-Based Laboratory (CBL), a hand-held device that connects to a graphing calculator, as a tool to make sophisticated measurements outside the classroom laboratory. Describes activities that use the CBL to make measurements in motion studies. (JRH)