Forces

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Summary

Year 6 teacher Zoe Lowe engages in her class's first science lesson. She looks at mass, weight and gravity using balls to represent major planets, the Earth and Moon and Astrobear to indicate a liv...

Year 6 teacher Zoe Lowe engages in her class's first science lesson. She looks at mass, weight and gravity using balls to represent major planets, the Earth and Moon and Astrobear to indicate a living creature.She begins with gravity, using the materials to illustrate pupils conveyed understanding. This provides a visual representation of their understanding and also their misconceptions about gravity.Through paired talk, they begin to understand that gravity is a force. Zoe introduces the term gravitational pull and refers back to classwork already done on the Earth and Beyond at the end of Year 5.She explains the difference in the scientific usage of the word weight as distinguished from everyday use using her visual aids and illustrates how gravitational pull differs and affects weight.Once the children have listed key vocabulary for the lesson, they engage in a practical session using Newton meters.

Steve Davies, a science inspector, discusses with Zoe Lowe, her lesson on weight, mass and gravity forces. Pupils revisit this topic at KS3 and 4 and Steve acknowledges that it is a challenging topic for primary school children due to the technical nature of the scientific language. The opening class discussion highlights the children's misconceptions. Zoe and Steve acknowledge the importance of this, but recognise it's also important to put them to one side in order not to confuse the issues. They also emphasise the importance of open-ended question and correct usage of scientific terms.Steve points out that when Zoe introduces the activity with Newton meters, some pupils achieve inaccurate readings because they have not realized the equipment has different scales. Steve suggests they could have weighed the same object together as a class to begin for greater clarity in the task.

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