Potentially your students will go kinetic over this installment of the Science of NHL Hockey video series! OK, really bad play on words. But luckily the energy of the video will make up for it. Ha! Really, though, students will learn how potential and kinetic energy cause a player’s slapshot to project a puck at speeds that could pass you up on the interstate!

One of ten lesson packages created by NBC Learn in partnership with NSF and NSTA, this video uses high-speed, slow motion camera work to show students the science of the slapper. Once you view the video and try the lesson plans, let us know how they work for you! And if you made significant changes to a lesson, we’d love to see what you did differently, as well as why you made the changes. Leave a comment, and we’ll get in touch with you with submission information.

—Judy Elgin Jensen

Photo of flexed hockey stick by Colin Busby.

Video: “Work, Energy & Power,” explores how NHL players depend on these important physics concepts as well as the roles of potential and kinetic energy and energy conservation.

Middle school lesson: In this lesson, students design ways to measure power output and demonstrate the conservation of energy.

High school lesson: In this lesson, students explore examples of work, potential and kinetic energy, and power, and demonstrate the conservation of energy.

You can use the following form to e-mail us edited versions of the lesson plans:

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