May the Force be with you

With lots of hands-on activities the children got to experiment with gravity, friction, reaction force and air resistance.

They discovered that gravity wants to pull objects towards the ground but air resistance, either harnessed in a parachute or produced via a hairdryer makes them fall more slowly or creates a balanced force and the ball stays in the air.

Using toy cars and ramps with different surfaces, it was discovered that a slippery surface has less friction and therefore gravity is more effective and the cars rolled down faster.

Interestingly the class also found out that the weight of the balls didn't matter when dropping them. The heaviest and lightest fell to the ground at the same time! More on this next week.

It was an exciting start to the unit.