To kick off the year in science, our 8th graders started learning about forms of energy, energy transfer (when a specific type of energy stays the same through a system but is passed from one object to another) and energy transformation (when a type of energy changes to another type). Some types of energy we covered included Potential Energy (stored energy), Gravitational Potential Energy (energy due to gravity pulling down), Kinetic Energy (energy associated with movement), Chemical Energy (like batteries or gasoline), Sound Energy, Thermal Energy (energy from heat), Electromagnetic Energy (like light energy), Magnetic Energy, Electrical Energy, Elastic Potential Energy (like energy from stretching a rubber band), and Nuclear Energy. In this lab, our students built contraptions known as the “Comeback can” or the “rollback can”. This lab demonstrated a couple of different principles in which there was energy transfer (kinetic energy from the students hand to kinetic energy in the can) as well as energy transformation (kinetic energy in the can to elastic potential energy in the rubber band within the can, then back to kinetic energy in the can itself). If the students built the models correctly, when they roll the can away from them there is a rubber band with a weight tied to it on the inside of the can which causes the rubber band to twist as the can rolls. The can eventually will stop rolling because all of the kinetic energy transforms into elastic potential energy in the rubber band which very quickly unwinds causing the energy to transform back into kinetic energy and it rolls back to the student. In the end, students had a better understanding of energy transfer vs energy transformation all while having a blast!