Un-gamified Lesson Plans and Worksheets Part 4: Water Resistance

Session E: Water Resistance

Whole class teaching: In a large space ask the children to imagine that they are standing in water up to their necks, how does it feel as they start to move around? It’s hard work - there is a lot of resistance (drag force) - discuss why it’s so much easier to move around on dry land – less resistance/lower drag force. 

Discuss how when you swim (actually kicking your legs and moving your arms) you can move through the water, but if you stop applying the forces you slow down (similar to when you are moving through air - compare to cycling, when you stop pedalling you slow down). Tell the children that you are now going to fill the pool with different liquids. What about oil? Syrup? How does it feel now? Why is it different? Back in the classroom take a look at three jars containing water, oil and syrup. Place the same small object (e.g. a marble, penny) into each jar in turn. Use the Discussion Drawing to stimulate discussion (session resource). How does it behave differently? What do the children notice? Will it be placed flat or edge on? Remind children of the opposite force theory as studied in the Session B. 

Remember the book on the table? The push force from the table was enough to stop the book from passing through it, in water the pull of gravity is greater than the pushing upthrust and so many objects sink. As a liquid becomes thicker (more viscous) its upthrust force increases. Finally place a plasticine ball into a bowl of water – it sinks as the forces are not balanced. Retrieve the plasticine and make a large flat shape (&/or a boat shape) - it floats – the increased surface area makes the most of the upthrust.

Group activities:

Adult-led activity:

Set up a demonstration for the children. Weigh two pieces of plasticine so that they have the same mass and roll each into a ball. Fill a tall clear cylinder with water and place it so that the children can see it. Tell the children that you are going to drop both balls from the same height at the same time. One into the water and one onto the table. Get the children to countdown… 3, 2, 1, Drop! What do they notice? The ball in water falls slower than that falling through the air. What is the explanation for this? Water resistance slows the ball travelling through the water in the same way that air resistance can slow a parachute.

Adult-led activity:

Place a number of different objects (that don’t float) one at a time into the fruit net and measure their weight using a force meter. Repeat the measurements this time while the net is suspended in water. Record each measurement in a table repeating if necessary to find an average/mean result. What do the results show? – Gravity still works under water, even though the weight seems different – water resistance is greater than air resistance. Remember the mass stays the same!

Adult-led activity:

Challenge children to predict which boat design will move most quickly through water (session resources).

Lesson Materials

Boat Shape Enquiry

You will need:

Length of household guttering (2m is sufficient) with a cap fitted on each end

Water

Three balsa wood boats prepared beforehand with three different prows: square, rounded and pointed

3 small hooks

Embroidery thread or thin cord

50g mass

Stopwatch

Method:

1. Before placing the first boat in the water ask children to predict what will happen. It will float! Give children pieces of balsa wood to feel – it is very light and they know wood floats from previous experience.

2. Show children the three boats and ask which shape they predict will move through the water most easily/with the least resistance acting on it. Children record their individual predictions.

3. Attach a piece of thread at least 2m long to the hook on each boat.

4. Attach an identical 50g mass to the other end of each thread.

5. Place the boat at one end of the trough and hold the weight above the end at the other end.

6. Drop the mass allowing it to fall to the floor pulling the thread and the boat through the water. Discuss what is driving the boat through the water – force of gravity pulling down on the mass.

7. Use a stopwatch to time how long it takes each boat to travel the 2m distance. Discuss what is slowing the boats – water resistance (drag force)

8. Repeat twice with each boat and record all results in a table.

9. After each run ask how each boat travelled through the water – smoothly?  Did it create waves or ripples on the surface?  

10. Work out a mean average for each set of boat results.

11. Together draw a graph of the results.

12. Ask children to each write a conclusion along the lines:

The boat with the ________ prow recorded the fastest time because …

The boat with the ________ prow was slowest because …   

The Dead Sea

Deep in the Jordan Valley, Israel/Jordan, is the Dead Sea, one of the most spectacular natural landscapes in the whole world. It is the lowest body of water on Earth, the lowest point on Earth and the world's richest source of natural salts.
It is normally as calm as glass, with barely a ripple disturbing its surface. During most days the water shimmers under a beating sun. Where rocks meet its lapping edges, they become snow-like, covered with a thick, gleaming white deposit that gives the area a strange moon like appearance.
The Dead Sea has no life due to an extremely high content of salts and minerals which is how it got its name! Its rumoured powers of curing many illnesses and its buoyancy have been recognized since the days of Herod the Great, more than 2000 years ago.
The salt content is four times that of most of the World’s oceans; you can float in the Dead Sea without even trying, which makes swimming interesting! It is the only place in the world where you can sit back on the water to read a newspaper.

Today the salts and minerals are used to create health products which are sold around the world.

References

Forces (Year 5) | Hamilton Trust. 2015. Forces (Year 5) | Hamilton Trust. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.hamilton-trust.org.uk/browse/science/y5/forces-year-5/86859. [Accessed 16 November 2015].

Un-gamified Lesson Plans and Worksheets Part 3: Air Resistance

Session D: Air Resistance

Whole class teaching:

Remind the children of their friction experiments from the previous session and the fact that when two surfaces come into contact with each other friction occurs. If moving over a surface is difficult then surely moving through air is easier? Briefly discuss with the children situations where they have felt the ‘force’ of moving air – running into the breeze on a windy day, holding an umbrella being pushed inside out, cycling on a windy day, etc.

Give a volunteer child a sheet of A4 scrap paper & ask them to drop it on command from shoulder height. Use a stopwatch to record how long it takes to fall to the ground. Record time on f/c. What happens if you change the shape of the sheet? Does a scrunched ball fall faster or slower than the flat sheet? What about other shapes (must use whole of A4 sheet each time)? Repeat with a few other children.

Take a large parachute like those used for circle time activities (in the Hall or playground). With all the children standing in a circle start to raise and lower the parachute together. What do they notice? – It’s hard work; the parachute feels heavier than it did when it was still. Allow a few children at a time to lie under the parachute while it is being raised & lowered. What do they feel? – The air rushing out and being drawn into the parachute.

Present the children with four balls the same size - golf ball, squash ball, table tennis ball and a bouncy ball – all same size, weigh those using digital scales - they are all the same size but each has a different mass. Record on f/c. Ask the children to vote for which will fall to the ground fastest when dropped from the same height. All have the same force acting on them – gravity. Record the children’s predictions as a tally on the board. Ask four children to come to the front to drop them simultaneously from the same height. What do the children notice? Repeat with several more drops… the balls fall at same rate when dropped. Why is this? – As the shape of the balls is the same they are all affected by the slowing air resistance in the same way. It is thought that in 1590 Galileo climbed to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa and performed the same ball drop enquiry (& feather & ball enquiry)! Allow children to help Galileo carry out his enquiry once more by going to http://www.planetseed.com/node/20129 or http://www.planetseed.com/popup/41280 (more detail).  He was the first to conclude that all objects would fall at the same rate/speed without air. Finding an environment without air (a vacuum) is hard although space is the perfect testing ground! See a feather and a hammer fall at the same speed at http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo_15_feather_drop.html. 

Group activities:

Tell the children that they are going to plan and then carry out their own enquiry to explore how spinners weighted with paper clips fall when dropped. Before starting they must agree in pairs on the question they are going to investigate through discussion of the Discussion Drawing (session resource). How does the number of paper clips affect the time the spinner takes to fall? How does the height a spinner is dropped from, affect the time it takes to fall? How does the size of the spinner affect the time it takes to fall?

Allow the children to consider how they are going to carry out their experiment to attempt to answer their questions. Remind the children that to be a fair test they can only change one factor and must keep all others the same. Discuss with each pair the factor that will change – greater mass, more height, etc. Allow the children to carry out their experiment, repeating and recording all measurements as they go. Make suggestions to groups investigating drop heights so that this can be carried out safely. Allow students to use template to create spinners (session resource – this can be photocopied larger for students who choose the option of increasing the area of paper used). Students should cut along the dotted lines before bending one side strip forwards, one backwards to create the blades, and folding the main body to make a triple thickness for fixing the paper clips to.

When the enquiry has been carried out, support the children as they create a graph and describe any patterns created by their results. Plot a line graph. Describe the pattern in their results, in the form: the larger the paper spinner, the slower it fell; the more paper clips added, the quicker it fell. Encourage the children to draw out a conclusion from their results, e.g. air pushes upwards and gravity pulls down; it is the size of the air resistance force that causes objects to fall at different rates, etc.

Lesson Materials

References

Forces (Year 5) | Hamilton Trust. 2015. Forces (Year 5) | Hamilton Trust. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.hamilton-trust.org.uk/browse/science/y5/forces-year-5/86859. [Accessed 16 November 2015].

Un-gamified Lesson Plans and Worksheets Part 2: Friction

Session C: Friction

Whole class teaching: (links to sessions 7, 11 & 12, Citius, Altius, Fortius Theme, UKS2 Olympics Topic)

Show the class the results of an enquiry that a group of children carried out using a car on a ramp (session resources). Ask why does the car travel further on some surfaces than on others? Do children know the name of the force that is acting? Friction. How can we define friction? The resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving over another or the action of one object rubbing against another, which tends to slow it down or stop it completely.

Look at the soles of the shoes bought in by the children; allow them to take a rubbing using wax crayon. Discuss why sports shoes/trainers often have many ridges and bumps to help them grip – changes of direction in sports, when you are moving fast, etc. Some sports shoes are even designed with a particular surface in mind!

Group activities:

Adult-led activity:

Tell the children that they are going to test their sports shoe to see which surfaces their shoe works best on. As a class decide on up to six contrasting floor surfaces – examples; grass, tile, carpet, polished wood, concrete, gravel. Ask the children to predict on which surface their shoe will be hardest to pull - most force required = most friction – encourage children to try to give scientific reasons, not simply observations based on daily life. In groups compare shoes. Which will have the best grip – most force required = most friction? Children write down their predictions (session resource). Plan the method as a class – which factors will need to stay the same to ensure that this will be a fair test? Work together in small groups. During the test children should record their measurements on the table using the session resource, draw bar charts to make the data easier to interpret and discuss the results. Children should make three measurements each time and calculate the mean (average) by adding all three measurements and dividing by three.  If one measurement differs greatly from the other two an extra measurement should be taken instead to check. What do the results show? Which surface allowed the shoe to move with less effort due to less friction? Was this the same surface for everyone’s shoe? Which surface required the most effort to get the shoe to move due to increased friction between the show and the surface? Discuss the results as a whole, giving individual children the opportunity to present their group’s findings. Whose shoe would provide the best grip in each location? What is it about the shoe with the best grip that causes it to generate friction when in contact with the floor? Would children make any changes to their enquiry if they did it again?

Lesson Materials

Car on a Slope Enquiry

Some children carried out an experiment to find out what happens when a car rolls down a slope covered in different surfaces. They measured how far the car rolled each time.

Here are their results: Surface Distance rolled in cm Wood 98 cm Fabric 8 cm Bubble Wrap 20 cm Paper 72 cm Rubber 42 cm

On which surface did the car roll the furthest? On which surface did it roll the least distance?

Why does the car roll further on some surfaces than others?

Shoe Friction

We wanted to find out how much force was needed to move a sports shoe across different surfaces.

We needed:

·         A sports shoe/trainer

·         A force meter

·         A selection of surfaces

Prediction:

I predict that the surface causing the most friction will be ____________________.

I predict that ________________’s shoe will have the best grip.

The experiment:

We attached our force meter to our shoe and placed it on each surface.

We recorded the amount of force needed to start the shoe moving.

We made it a fair test by ________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

The results:

Surface	Force needed to start shoe moving (newtons)

Conclusion:

The sole of the shoe had the best grip on ______________. With more friction between the shoe and the surface, more force was needed to make the shoe move. ________________’s shoe had the best grip.

References

Forces (Year 5) | Hamilton Trust. 2015. Forces (Year 5) | Hamilton Trust. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.hamilton-trust.org.uk/browse/science/y5/forces-year-5/86859. [Accessed 16 November 2015].

Un-gamified Lesson Plans and Worksheets Part 1: Opposing Forces

After speaking with my lecturers I have decided to present my blog in a slightly different way. Bellow I am going to show the different lesson plans I have found based around the KS2 Year 5 subject of Science. My plan is to show my process of gamifying these lessons and tasks over the coming weeks. This will show what a gamified curriculum will look like in all its stages and also form an organic pipeline what I can document for other to use if they wish. These lesson plans will be presented in separate posts due to their length.

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Session B: Opposing Forces (NOT GAMIFIED)

Whole class teaching:

Remind students that the force meters they used in the last session used units called newtons (N), named after Sir Isaac Newton. Do the students know anything about this famous scientist? Using the session resource discuss Newton’s life.

Tell students about Newton’s work with gravity - demonstrate by dropping an apple! Explain that it was actually a falling apple that made Newton think in depth about gravity.

Play short animation at http://www.askaboutireland.ie/learning-zone/primary-students/5th-+-6th-class/science/gravity/famous-scientists-and-gra/isaac-newton/

Or the video clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk6Hd8LAv9k

Newton was considered an amazing scientist during his life & when he died in 1727 he was buried in Westminster Abbey in London. Use Discussion Drawing (session resource) to stimulate discussion about forces. Remind students that gravity is the force of attraction of an object. All objects with mass exert a pull on other objects, but the Earth is by far the biggest object so exerts the biggest force.

Show students a book lying on a table. Draw a diagram of it on the board & add the arrows of the forces between the book & the table (or use session resource). Explain that Newton also investigated many other things in science and maths, e.g. he discovered that white light contains the same colours as seen in a rainbow. Read a poem about his three ‘laws of motion’ (session resources).

So what stops us being sucked to the very centre of the Earth? The simple answer is that gravity is not strong enough. It is a relatively weak force, much weaker than the forces that hold together the ground or floor we stand on. Newton theorised that ‘every action has an equal & opposite reaction’ (his ‘Third Law of Motion’). The ‘equal and opposite’ balancing force to our weight is the resistance (or upthrust) provided by the ground. Because these separate forces are in balance, we do not fall through the ground – or float away! If there is not enough strength in what we stand on – like a thin layer of ice on water, or a rotten wood floor for example – then our weight will overcome the upthrust that the floor can provide and we fall through it. Place a book on the table – the book is pushing on the table because it is being pulled down by gravity. The table is providing resistance and pushing back. As the forces are balanced, the book does not move.

                                         

Lesson Resources

Who was Sir Isaac Newton?

Sir Isaac Newton is one of the greatest scientists who have ever lived. Born in 1642 Isaac Newton had a lasting impact on astronomy, physics, and mathematics. His father died before he was born and so Newton had a difficult childhood. His mother remarried when he was just three, and he was then sent to live with his grandmother. After his stepfather died, his mother brought him home to Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire, where she wanted him to become a farmer. However an uncle noticed how clever he was and he eventually made it to Trinity College, Cambridge University.
Many of his great ideas came in 1665-66, when he spent time back at Woolsthorpe while Cambridge was closed because of the plague. Among his many achievements were the invention of the reflecting telescope, the basic design behind all large telescopes used today; the invention of some mathematics known as calculus, which is very useful in science today; the discovery of the three laws of motion; and the development of the law of universal gravitation: the theory that all objects fall at the same rate without air resistance.
When still in his mid-twenties, he was named Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, a post now held by Stephen Hawking.

He died in 1727 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Sir Isaac Newton’s Laws of Motion

Newton was a clever man.
An avid scientific fan.
He questioned many things he saw.
Like ones we had no answers for.

He thought them through right to their cores.
Then gave us many handy laws.

Newton’s First Law Of Motion:
Without a force of push or pull
an object will remain quite still.
With just one push at just one time
that object moves in one straight line.

Newton’s Second Law Of Motion:
A bigger Force accelerates
an object that is heavy-weight.
While objects of a smaller mass
don’t need much Force to move them fast.

So Newton noticed they obey
that Force will equal m times a.

Newton’s Third Law Of Motion:
Now bend a stick. Before it cracks
you’ll feel its force of pushing back.
For every action there will be
an equal one – opposingly.

Without his formulas in place
we’d soon get lost in outer space.
So Isaac’s Laws help us traverse
the reaches of our universe.

by Celia Berrell

Taken from: http://www.sciencerhymes.com.au/published-poem

References

Forces (Year 5) | Hamilton Trust. 2015. Forces (Year 5) | Hamilton Trust. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.hamilton-trust.org.uk/browse/science/y5/forces-year-5/86859. [Accessed 16 November 2015].