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What can Forces do?This was a 'Writing about Science' project at Charles Lamb School (now New North School). The pupils were in Year 5 and the writer was Angela Royston. The pupils looked at Forces: What are they? What can they do? How can we understand them? How can they be of use to us? At the end of the project a book was created copies of which can be found at Islington Education Library Service. Balancing section from 'What can forces do?'"I wanted to find out how to balance different numbers of books. I got some string, two elastic bands, lots of books and a short stick." "Then I put an elastic band on the books and tied the books to the string on each side of the stick. I hung the stick from a piece of string in the middle." "The end with the heavy books went down. This was because the forces were unbalanced. If the books were balanced, the stick would be perfectly straight. I moved the string towards the heavy side to balance it."
Comments from teachers"The children worked hard, understanding the science, writing the text, drawing the pictures and devising the experiments- as well as carrying out the experiments with great concentration and enthusiasm." Comments from pupils"I've had a lot of fun with the experiments and drawing pictures. We learned lots about friction. It was really hard work. Sometimes we got mixed up with the writing but sorted it out in time." "I liked working with Angela because she is a science writer and she helped us with the writing. When we did our experiments she helped us sort problems out." "I learnt that friction is the force that keeps the football in the goalie's hands. Angela taught me about captions and how to make books interesting." |
"The children worked hard, understanding the science, writing the text, drawing the pictures and devising the experiments- as well as carrying out the experiments with great concentration and enthusiasm" Charles Lamb school, Yr 5 teacher |
