We were little scientists today.
Last week we had found out that a steep gradient (our posh word for hills) made our superheroes go faster. Today we were finding out if different materials on the gradient changed the speed.
We made sensible scientist guesses before we began our experiment. Many of us thought the bumpy material would make our car go fast because the cars would ‘fall into the bumps.’ Some of us thought the towel material would make our car go the fastest because it was flat. Some of us also thought the wooden material would be the fastest because it was smooth.
We worked in teams to find out if our guesses were correct. We used towels, bubble wrap, bumpy material and smooth wood on our hills. We used a stop watch to time which material made the car go fastest. We tried each one two or more times because Scientists always double check!
We found out that the wooden material was the fastest. It took only one second for our superhero cars to move down the wooden hill! We decided it was because the wood was smooth and hard. We also spoke about forces and decided that a push force is helping the car to move. We explained that ‘the car doesn’t even move without a push force on the towel!’
We also wrote and drew what had happened in our experiment because Scientists like to always remember what happened.
We are going to explore our experiments further in our play over the next few days.
We finished the afternoon with some games on the computer. We were really keen for these to go on the Blog so we could play them at home. Here they are:
Rock and Roll. Help Caveman Max to decide which force he should use. Click here.
Forces – push the truck. Find out if a hard or a soft push makes a difference. Click here
We will become more confident with these websites over the next few days.
