Micro 9, Week 2 Thursday​ ​What affects reaction time?

Goals:
● Introduce why your quickness to react to a situation is important
● Provide students with examples of what can slow down response time

Objectives:
● For students to gain a background in what causes so many accidents each year
● For students to conduct their own reaction time experiments

Essential Questions:
● Why is a quick reaction time important on the road?
● How can we calculate reaction time?

Preparation: cue up reaction time website

Materials:
● Stopwatch
● Ruler
● Green flashlight
● Yellow flashlight
● Red flashlight
● Website
● Handouts

Class Sequence:
Introduction (5)
Activity 1 (10)
Small group discussion (5)
Activity 2 (20)

Introduction:
Ask students to free write for 5 minutes on all of the steps needed to stop a car

Activity 1 How Long would it take for you to respond to an emergency?

Small group discussion:

Do you think some groups of people have better or worse response time? Here are a few ideas:
● taxi drivers
● basketball players
● older adults
● people that play video games

Activity 2 What affects our reaction times?

How long would it take you to respond to an emergency?

Free Write: ​Make a list in your journal of the steps needed to stop a car

The amount of time that a person requires before they can act can affect their
driving. A person who needs a second to respond to what they see or hear is more
likely to have an accident than someone who responds in half a second.

Many deaths that occur on the highway are drivers and passengers that did not
cause the accident because of not enough time to respond.

Your Challenge: find out who has the fastest response time!
Using the materials provided, with a partner, devise a
way to measure your response time to a traffic light and record your results

If you are anticipating an event, reaction times can be as short as 0.15 s. For drivers
focusing on the car ahead of them, an average reaction time is 1.6 s. For drivers
encountering an unexpected obstacle around a blind curve, an average reaction time
is closer to 2.5 s
Name____________________________________ Date_______________

What affects our average reaction times?

Alcohol is water-soluble and is readily absorbed in the blood. More blood is

supplied to the brain that to other organs, with the result that alcohol impairs your
brain function within minutes!

Check out the ​Alcohol Impairment Chart​ to jot down answers:

Do the male and female sections of the chart differ? Why do you think this is?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

At what blood alcohol percentage are females unsafe to drive?__________________

At what blood alcohol percentage are males unsafe to drive?_____________________

Name____________________________________ Date_______________

Shocking Statistic: ​3 out of 4 teens say that they speed when they drive, and
about half don’t wear seat belts. Plus, 40% say they’ve ridden with a teen driver
who was intoxicated or impaired.
Name____________________________________ Date_______________

Test your brain’s average reaction time!

Follow the link below and record your average reaction time:
http://cognitivelabs.com/mydna_speedtest3.htm
Average Reaction Time_____________________miliseconds
Introduce the following variables and test again:
● Loud music
Average Reaction Time_____________________miliseconds
● Impaired vision (use distortion goggles)
Average Reaction Time_____________________miliseconds
● People talking in the back seat
Average Reaction Time_____________________miliseconds
*​When was your reaction time the slowest? Why do you think that is?