A-Maze-Ing

• Review the A-Maze-Ing lesson in the LEGO^® Education SPIKE^™ App.
• If you feel that it would be beneficial, pre-teach these related vocabulary words: capable, evidence, obstacles, record, tilt and transfer.
• Consider the abilities and backgrounds of all your pupils. Differentiate the lesson to make it accessible to everyone. Please refer to the Differentiation section below for suggestions on how to do this.
• If time permits, plan and facilitate the maths extension. Please refer to the Extension section below for further information.

Lesson Plan

• Facilitate a quick discussion about how energy can be transferred from one object to another.
  • Talk with your pupils about what happens when two objects collide with one another.
  • Ask questions like these: When two objects collide, what happens to their energy? How can you tell that energy is being transferred?
• Introduce your pupils to the story’s main characters and the first challenge: counting the number of tilts that are needed to complete the maze.
• Distribute a brick set and a device to each group.

• Have your pupils use the LEGO^® Education SPIKE^™ App to guide them through their first challenge:
  • Create and test the program that counts the number of tilts it takes to complete the maze.
• Have your pupils iterate and test their models to complete the next two challenges in the app:
  • Modify the program to make the maze do something different when it’s been tilted.
  • Upgrade the maze by adding different obstacles.
• You can find coding and building help in the Tips section below.

• Gather your pupils together to reflect on their completed challenges.
• Ask questions like these: How many tilts did it take for the ball to reach the goal? How did the ball's energy change when it interacted with an obstacle or the wall of the maze? How was this visible in the ball's motion?

• Prompt your pupils to discuss and reflect on their observations of energy being transferred from place to place.
• Ask questions like these: Where did you see interactions that affected the energy of the ball in the maze? What else could you see or hear that would indicate that energy was being transferred?
• Have your pupils tidy up their workstations.

• Ask guiding questions to encourage your pupils to ‘think aloud’ and explain their thought processes and reasoning in the decisions they’ve made while building and programming their models.

Observation Checklist

• Measure your pupils’ proficiency in explaining how motion can be a sign that energy is being transferred.
• Establish a scale that suits your needs. For example:
  1. Requires additional support
  2. Can work independently
  3. Can teach others

Self-Assessment
Have each pupil choose the brick that they feel best represents their performance.

• Yellow: I think that I can explain how motion can be a sign of energy
  being transferred.
• Blue: I can explain how motion can be a sign of
  energy being transferred.
• Green: I can explain how motion can be a sign of energy being transferred, and I can also help a friend to do it.

Peer Feedback

• In their small groups, have your pupils discuss their experiences of working together.
• Encourage them to use statements like these:
  • I liked it when you…
  • I'd like to hear more about how you…

Coding Tips

• After your pupils have completed their first challenge, they'll be provided with three Inspiration Coding Blocks, which will help them to modify their programs.
• The Inspiration Coding Blocks are intended to spark their imaginations as they experiment to find their own solutions.

Model Tip

• After your pupils have completed their second challenge, they’ll be provided with three Inspiration Images and an open-ended prompt, which will help them to improve their models.
• The Inspiration Images are meant to help spark their imaginations as they experiment and change their models.

There are no specific building instructions for this challenge.

Simplify this lesson by:

• Limiting the number of obstacles in the maze
• Selecting one Inspiration Image to help your pupils to change their models
• Experimenting with either the coding or the building

Increase the difficulty by:

• Creating a different program that collects data when the maze is tilted differently (e.g. left, right, forwards, backwards)
• Exploring new and different Coding Blocks in the program

• Using the information gathered from the Bar Graph Block, ask your pupils to write a paragraph comparing their results to another group’s results. Tell them to use more than, less than and equal to statements.

If facilitated, this will extend beyond the 45-minute lesson.

Maths: National Curriculum Maths Ma4/2.4 Fractions (including decimals)