Fantastic Forces

To enhance children's knowledge and understanding of forces they have been working scientifically to investigate friction, air resistance and water resistance, including their effects on objects.

Friction

The children were set the task of investigating the effect of different surfaces on the movement of a toy car. The children set up ramps and covered these in four different materials to see which caused the most friction and therefore caused the car to travel more slowly down the ramp.

Air Resistance

The children worked to create “the perfect parachute”. They were able to change one variable such as the shape of the parachute, the length of the string or the size of their parachute. They timed how long it took for their parachutes to reach the ground. Those falling more slowly had more air resistance acting upon them.

Water Resistance

The children investigated this by creating five different shapes from plasticine and dropping them into a measuring cylinder full of water. They timed how long it took for them to reach the bottom. Those taking longer to sink to the bottom had more water resistance acting upon them.

The children had a great time investigating these different forces and they have carefully selected scientific vocabulary to help support their findings.