Energy on a Roller Coaster

Energy on a Roller Coaster Worksheet (Grade 6 Science, TEKS 6.8B)

Turn an amusement park ride into an energy system. This one-page reading and activity sheet follows a roller coaster from the top of a hill to the bottom with 1,000 units of energy, showing potential energy becoming kinetic energy and some energy becoming thermal energy and sound, while the total never changes.

What's Inside

• A Big Question box: "Where does a roller coaster's energy go?"
• A roller coaster doodle with points A, B, and C
• Activity 1: Students fill in missing values in an energy table so each row adds up to 1,000
• Activity 2: Three circle-the-answer questions, including why the second hill must be shorter
• A visual answer key with answers marked in red

How Teachers Use It

Use it after the 6.8A roller coaster sheet or as practice for TEKS 6.8B. The sheet takes about 10 minutes, needs no prior knowledge, and prints clearly in black and white.

This worksheet is part of the Reading in Science series for grade 6. It supports TEKS 6.8B: describe how energy is conserved through transfers and transformations in systems such as electrical circuits, food webs, amusement park rides, or photosynthesis. It is one of seven connected TEKS 6.8B sheets that follow energy through systems. The unit big idea is that energy can be stored, transferred, and transformed, but it is not created or destroyed.

Why It Works

Each sheet opens with a Big Question, teaches the key terms in plain words with simple black-and-white doodles, and then asks students to use only what the page taught. Simple whole-number energy units make conservation visible, and the visual answer key lets teachers check work fast.