Target Audience
Key Stage 2
Sc4 Physical Processes Sc4 (Forces) Yr 5
Pupils should:
“experience forces that make things begin to move, get faster or slow down” “They might design and make products that use levers, pulleys
and/or springs and explore their effects”
Objective
To enable children to understand that energy can be stored in a number of ways and can be put to useful purpose.
What you need
Springs(easily obtainable in bulk through most LEA consortium suppliers), dowel and small lath wood.
What you do
- See video clip: “Spring Power” from website www.practicalprimaryscience.co.uk
- Use the firing pin (see video for construction) to give the toy vehicle greater amounts of propulsion by increasing the stretch of the spring by 1cm intervals
- Record the results on the recording sheet. Children should be given the opportunity to predict what will happen before each measurement is made and in that way they are encouraged to see potential patterns emerge in their investigation.
How it works
Springs have, when stretched, stored energy which can be released to create movement. The intention of this practical work is to enable children to appreciate that energy can be stored and released to produce energy in terms of movement in many forms of appliances/equipment.
Preliminary Activity
Children should research into everyday applications where springs serve a useful purpose e.g. the garden gate.
follow up work
Find instances where other materials can be used to store energy e.g. the elastic band and then to challenge the children to design some piece of apparatus that can be powered by an elastic band to serve a useful purpose.