In this activity children design a boat made of recyclable materials and consider the forces acting on a boat.
Description
22 year old Rhys and his Dad are sailing a tiny 12ft craft down all 4,000 miles of the Mississippi, the longest river in the US. Reinforcing the council's message of 'reduce, reuse, recycle', Rhys' boat is made from materials that are both sustainably sourced and recyclable. It consists of a wooden cabin encased in a hull made from the same material as orange juice cartons.
Children will design a boat made of recyclable materials. They will consider the forces acting on a boat. Also they will argue how the adventure will help raise the issues of recycling.
Learning Objective:
- to describe the forces acting on an object
- to produce annotated drawings showing the direction in which forces are acting
Children will learn:
- to record forcemeter readings for objects suspended in air and water, identify that the reading is less in water than in air and explain that this is because the upward push of the water cancels out some of the weight or 'pull down from gravity'
These resources were initially developed in partnership with the Centre for Science Education, Sheffield Hallam University.
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